Spatio-temporal pattern discrimination in cats with insular-temporal lesions

Previous studies have demonstrated that cats with bilateral insular-temporal lesions are impaired in their ability to perform temporal pattern discriminations of the general form A--B--A vs B--A--B. This deficit has been seen to occur when A and B are made up of two different auditory, visual, or vibrotractile stimuli. These data suggest that insular-temporal cortex is a multimodal area concerned with the perception of temporal sequences of stimuli. The present study extends these earlier observations by testing insular-temporal lesioned cats on a spatio-temporal pattern discrimination. A spatio-temporal pattern is defined as one in which the same stimulus is presented to the animal sequentially from different spatial locations. The data indicate that insular-temporal lesions disrupt a spatio-temporal pattern discrimination just as they do auditory, visual, or vibrotactile temporal pattern discriminations. Insular-temporal cortex appears to be critical for certain higher order perceptual abilities in the cat.