Effect of hippocampal lesion on acquisition of conditioned avoidance behaviour in albino rats

Control, hippocampal and Sham control male albino rats weighing 150-200 gms were trained for acquisition of conditioned avoidance behavioural response using escape avoidance apparatus. Parameters like rate of performance, error scores, conditioned stimulus latency and unconditioned stimulus latency were studied. It was observed that there was a facilitation in the behavioural response with less error scores in hippocampal animals as compared to Sham control and control groups. Our observations are similar to those of Douglas and Pribram and Douglas and it is concluded that the hippocampus acts as a gate restricting the range of stimuli to which an intact animal attends.