Related Experiment Video
Updated: Aug 30, 2026

A Within-Subject Experimental Design using an Object Location Task in Rats
Published on: May 6, 2021
The role of the prefrontal cortex in object-place learning: a test of the attribute specificity model
Raymond P Kesner1, Michael E Ragozzino
1Department of Psychology, University of Utah, 380 South 1530 East Room 502, Salt Lake City, UT 84112, USA. rpkesner@behsci.utah.edu
Abstract:
In order to test an attribute specificity model of prefrontal cortex function, rats with lesions in the prelimbic-infralimbic (PL-IL) or anterior cingulate and precentral (AC-PC) subregions of the medial prefrontal cortex and controls were trained on an object-place paired associate task. Rats with AC-PC lesions acquired the task as readily as controls. In contrast, the PL-IL lesioned rats did not learn the task. Whenever higher order processing is required to solve a task, the data support an attribute-specificity model of prefrontal cortex function in that the PL-IL cortices support both object and place attribute information in a variety of tasks including object-place paired associate learning.
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