Complex brain function in monkeys as a baseline for studying the effects of exogenous compounds

We have examined the population characteristics of a group of 69 monkey subjects performing in a complex operant test battery designed to generate behaviors indicative of specific brain functions. These functions include learning, short-term memory and attention, time perception, position and color discrimination and motivation. Performance by a subject in one of these operant tasks is not necessarily correlated with or predictive of performance in the other tasks, indicating that the tests in the battery are monitoring the functions of different brain systems. Additionally, as demonstrated by challenging a few of the animals with intravenous delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol, we have shown that the performances in the various components of the test battery are differentially sensitive to disruption by exogenous compounds.