Sparing of a brightness habit in rats following visual decortication

• Published in: Journal of comparative & physiological psychology Vol. 61; no. 1; pp. 79 - 82
• Main Authors: Braun, J. Jay, Meyer, Patricia M, Meyer, Donald R
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: United States American Psychological Association 01-02-1966; Williams and Wilkins Co
• Subjects: Amphetamine - pharmacology; Animal; Animals; Avoidance Learning; Brightness Perception; Cerebral Cortex - physiology; Cerebral Decortication; Discrimination Learning; Electroshock; Habits; Humans; Memory; Psychophysiology; Rats; Visual Discrimination; Visual Perception
• ISSN: 0021-9940
• DOI: 10.1037/h0022854

In Exp. I, rats learned a black-white discrimination and were visually decorticated and tested for recovery of the habit while under the influence of low dosages of amphetamine. Amphetamine treatment facilitated reestablishment of discrimination performance whereas saline and operated control groups showed no retention. In Exp. II, the facilitated performance observed in Exp. I was shown to be a function of preoperative training: amphetamine treated visually decorticated rats with no preoperative experience learned the habit no faster than saline controls. Thus, the retention deficit for brightness discrimination normally observed in visually decorticated rats is due to loss of access to the engram rather than to loss of the engram itself.