Elsevier

Physiology & Behavior

Volume 11, Issue 2, August 1973, Pages 215-220
Physiology & Behavior

Inhibitory gradients and behavioural contrast in rats with lesions of the fornix

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Abstract

Rats with lesions of the fornix showed behavioural contrast during the acquisition of a successive discrimination between white noise (S+) and a 670 Hz tone (S−). Inhibitory generalisation around S− was then tested with the resistance-to-reinforcement technique. The fornix-lesioned rats showed sharper inhibitory gradients than the controls. During the test their response rate rose from their old S− rate to their old S+ rate more slowly than did the controls', and was at the beginning of the test significantly lower than the controls'. The implication of these results for theories of hippocampal function was discussed.

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