The role of the retrosplenial cortex in route memory

2017 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 15K01836
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (C)
• Allocation Type: Multi-year Fund
• Section: 一般
• Research Field: Basic / Social brain science
• Research Institution: Kwansei Gakuin University
• Principal Investigator: SATO Nobuya 関西学院大学, 文学部, 教授 (70465269)
• Research Collaborator: YAMAGISHI Atsuhito 関西学院大学, 文学研究科, 大学院研究員 ; HAYASHI Tomohiro 関西学院大学, 文学研究科
• Project Period (FY): 2015-04-01 – 2018-03-31
• Keywords: 脳梁膨大後皮質 / ナビゲーション / ルート記憶 / 空間記憶 / ラット

Outline of Final Research Achievements

To manifest the function of the retrosplenial cortex, we examined the effect of a small structural change of the environment on route following performance in rats with lesions of the retrosplenial cortex. As a result, there was no effect of the retrosplenial lesions on the number of trials to learn a route in a lattice maze. However, in a test task, the number of entering into irrelevant areas in the maze increased in the rats with lesions of retrosplenial cortex when a part of the structure of the maze was changed. This suggests that the retrosplenial cortex was involved in automatically following of learned routes and that the function is disturbed by the small structural change of the maze.

Free Research Field

行動神経科学