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Neonatal Perirhinal Lesions in Rhesus Macaques Alter Performance on Working Memory Tasks with High Proactive
Alison R Weiss1, Ryhan Nadji1, Jocelyne Bachevalier2
1Department of Psychology, Emory University Atlanta, GA, USA.
Frontiers in Systems Neuroscience
|January 19, 2016
Summary
Neonatal perirhinal cortex lesions in animals transiently impaired object working memory (WM) maintenance but spared temporal order monitoring. Impairments were linked to proactive interference, not core WM deficits.
Area of Science:
- Neuroscience
- Cognitive Neuroscience
- Animal Models
Background:
- The lateral prefrontal cortex is crucial for working memory (WM).
- The medial temporal lobe's perirhinal cortex interacts with the prefrontal cortex and is vital for object representation.
- The perirhinal cortex's role in WM maintenance and monitoring remains underexplored.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate the impact of neonatal perirhinal cortex lesions on object-based working memory processes.
- To differentiate effects on WM maintenance versus monitoring.
- To assess the influence of proactive interference on WM performance after perirhinal lesions.
Main Methods:
- Neonatal perirhinal lesions were induced in animals.
- Adult animals were tested on three object-based WM tasks: SU-DNMS (maintenance), OBJ-SO (maintenance/monitoring), and SOMT (monitoring).
- Tasks varied in proactive interference levels.
Main Results:
- Neonatal perirhinal lesions caused transient impairment in SU-DNMS acquisition at short delays.
- Lesions severely impaired OBJ-SO acquisition, marked by increased perseverative errors.
- Performance on SOMT, a task with low proactive interference, was preserved.
Conclusions:
- Neonatal perirhinal lesions impair WM performance primarily in tasks with high proactive interference.
- These findings suggest perirhinal cortex damage affects impulse control and behavioral flexibility rather than core WM capacity.
- The perirhinal cortex plays a critical role in managing interference within working memory tasks.
