Contents: Part I:Introduction. W. Hodos, C.B.G. Campbell, Evolutionary Scales and Comparative Studies of Animal Cognition. Part II:Neurobiology of Communication. B. Gordon, Human Language. U. J rgens, Vocal Communication in Primates. H. Williams, Bird Song. Part III:Neurobiology of Learning and Memory. E.A. Murray, Representational Memory in Nonhuman Primates. A.S. Powers, Brain Mechanisms of Learning in Reptiles. R.P. Kesner, Learning and Memory in Rats With an Emphasis on the Role of the Hippocampal Formation. J.B. Overmier, K.L. Hollis, Fish in the Think Tank: Learning, Memory, and Integrated Behavior. R. Menzel, Learning, Memory, and Cognition in Honey Bees. J.H. Byrne, Learning and Memory in Aplysia and Other Invertebrates. Part IV.Neurobiology of Spatial Organization. F.J. Friedrich, Frameworks for the Study of Human Spatial Impairments. E.T. Rolls, Functions of the Primate Hippocampus in Spatial Processing and Memory. B. Leonard, B.L. McNaughton, Spatial Representation in the Rat: Conceptual, Behavioral, and Neurophysiological Perspectives. V.P. Bingman, Spatial Navigation in Birds.
M. R. Gilmartin and M. D. McEchron (2005) reported that single cells recorded in the prelimbic cortex of rats during the acquisition of trace fear conditioning display multiple patterns of neuronal firing during the trace. These finding are discussed in the context of the role of the prelimbic cortex in processing temporal information during trace conditioning and delayed matching- or nonmatching-to-sample paradigms based on both electrophysiology and lesion evidence. In addition, evidence is provided for a role of the hippocampus in supporting temporal processing of information and its potential interaction with the prelimbic cortex.
The prefrontal cortex and the dorsal hippocampus have been studied extensively for their significant roles in spatial working memory. A possible time-dependent functional relationship between the prefrontal cortex and the dorsal hippocampus in spatial working memory was tested. A combined lesion and pharmacological inactivation technique targeting both the dorsal hippocampus and the medial prefrontal cortex was used (i.e., axon-sparing lesions of the dorsal hippocampus combined with reversible inactivation of the medial prefrontal cortex, or vice versa, within a subject). A delayed nonmatching-to-place task on a radial eight-arm maze with short-term (i.e., 10 sec) versus intermediate-term (i.e., 5 min) delays was used as a behavioral paradigm. Here we report that the dorsal hippocampus and the medial prefrontal cortex process short-term spatial memory in parallel, serving as a compensatory mechanism for each other. The role of the dorsal hippocampus, however, becomes highlighted as the time-window for memory (i.e., delay) shifts from short-term to a delay period (i.e., intermediate-term) exceeding the short-term range. The results indicate that the time window of memory is a key factor in dissociating multiple memory systems.
