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The majority of research regarding contextual learning and memory has focused on the contributions of the hippocampus and related medial temporal lobe structures. However, little is known about other possible cortical contributions to these processes. Our laboratory recently demonstrated that electrolytic lesions of the retrosplenial cortex (RSP), a posterior region of cingulate cortex, impaired contextual but not cue-specific fear conditioning. The present experiments further examined the role of RSP in contextual fear memory using fiber-sparing neurotoxic lesions and both signaled and unsignaled fear conditioning paradigms. Despite comparable acquisition of the conditioned fear response, rats with neurotoxic lesions of RSP exhibited impaired contextual memory relative to control animals in both the signaled and unsignaled paradigms. These results further suggest an important role for RSP in contextual learning and memory. Keywords: associative learning, aversive, corticohippocampal, memory, posterior cingulate

Lesions of retrosplenial cortex (RSP) disrupt spatial and contextual learning, suggesting that RSP may have a fundamental role in processing overlapping, or simultaneously presented stimuli. If so, then RSP lesions might also be expected to disrupt learning that requires the concurrent processing of phasic conditioned stimuli. In Experiment 1, rats were trained in a compound feature negative discrimination task in which a tone was presented and immediately followed by food on some trials, while on other trials a visual stimulus was simultaneously presented along with the tone and not reinforced. Normal rats learned to discriminate between the trials but RSP-lesioned rats exhibited low levels of conditioning on both types of trials. Experiment 2 demonstrated that this effect was not simply due to a general inability to form associations, since RSP-lesioned rats exhibited normal responding when the visual stimulus was presented alone and paired with food. These findings support the view that RSP has an important role in learning that involves the processing of simultaneously presented stimuli and have implications for understanding the functional relationship between the hippocampus and RSP. Keywords: medial temporal lobe, hippocampus, associative learning, cingulate, feature negative

The retrosplenial cortex (RSP) and the posterior parietal cortex (PPC) are the primary sources of cortical sensory input to the postrhinal cortex (POR) in rodents. Together, these areas compose a major corticohippocampal circuit that is involved in processing visuospatial information. The POR has been implicated in contextual learning and memory, consistent with the type of information presumably being processed by this region. By comparison, little is known about the role of the RSP or the PPC in contextual learning. In the present study, rats were trained either before or after surgery in a standard signaled fear conditioning task in which an auditory cue was paired with foot shock. Contextual fear and tone-specific fear were assessed in subsequent test sessions. In Experiment 1, electrolytic damage to the RSP either before or immediately after training impaired the expression of contextual fear but not tone-specific fear. In contrast, electrolytic damage to the PPC had no effect on conditional fear to the context or the tone in Experiment 2. These findings indicate that the RSP, but not the PPC, contributes to the processing of contextual information by the POR corticohippocampal processing stream. Keywords: associative learning, memory, postrhinal, corticohippocampal, aversive

This study assessed basic learning and attention abilities in Wistar-Kyoto hyperactive (WKHA) rats using appetitive conditioning preparations. Two measures of conditioned responding to a visual stimulus. orienting behavior (rearing on the hind legs). and food cup behavior (placing the head inside the recessed food cup) were measured. In Experiment 1, simple conditioning, but not extinction, was impaired in WKHA rats compared with Wistar rats. In Experiment 2. nonreinforced presentations of the visual cue preceded the conditioning sessions. WKHA rats displayed less orienting behavior than Wistar rats but comparable levels of food cup behavior. These data suggest that WKHA rats exhibit specific abnormalities in attentional processing as well as in learning stimulus-reward relationships. Keywords: attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder, classical conditioning, attention, orienting

The restrosplenial cortex (RSC) has a well-established role in contextual and spatial learning and memory, consistent with its known connectivity with visuo-spatial association areas. In contrast, RSC appears to have little involvement with delay fear conditioning to an auditory cue. However, all previous studies have examined the contribution of the RSC to recently acquired auditory fear memories. Since neocortical regions have been implicated in the permanent storage of remote memories, we examined the contribution of the RSC to remotely acquired auditory fear memories. In Experiment 1, retrieval of a remotely acquired auditory fear memory was impaired when permanent lesions (either electrolytic or neurotoxic) were made several weeks after initial conditioning. In Experiment 2, using a chemogenetic approach, we observed impairments in the retrieval of remote memory for an auditory cue when the RSC was temporarily inactivated during testing. In Experiment 3, after injection of a retrograde tracer into the RSC, we observed labeled cells in primary and secondary auditory cortices, as well as the claustrum, indicating that the RSC receives direct projections from auditory regions. Overall our results indicate the RSC has a critical role in the retrieval of remotely acquired auditory fear memories, and we suggest this is related to the quality of the memory, with less precise memories being RSC dependent.