Winter SS, Martin MM, Wallace DG (2007) Walking the Plank: Role of the medial septum in distance estimation. Neuroscience 2007 Abstracts 743.21/BBB15. Society for Neuroscience, San Diego, CA.
Summary: Controversy surrounds the role of the septohippocampal system in spatial orientation. Recent work has demonstrated that selective cholinergic deafferentation of the hippocampus impairs use of self-movement cues while sparing environmental cue use. Self-movement cues are generated from changes in position or direction. The current study examines the role of the septohippocampal cholinergic system in processing of self-movement cues related to changes in position or distance estimation in a food hoarding task. The probability of food hoarding has been shown to be influenced by travel distance and time to consume the food item. Long Evans female rats received either injections of 192 IgG-Saporin (SAP) or saline (SHAM) into the medial septum. Subsequent to recovery, rats were placed in a refuge on a 15 cm wide plank and allowed to traverse the plank to collect food pellets located at the end. Both the distance to the food pellet (2.4 vs. 4.8 m) and size of the food pellet (190, 500, 1000 mg) were varied across days. Differences in food hoarding probability were observed between groups. SAP rats were less likely to modify their food hoarding probability in response to changes in plank length relative to SHAM rats. These results are consistent with selective hippocampal cholinergic deafferentation producing deficits in processing self-movement cues related to distance estimation.
Related Products: 192-IgG-SAP (Cat. #IT-01)