A comparison of frontal pole, anterior median and caudate nucleus lesions in the rat

Rats with frontal pole cortex, anterior median cortex, caudate nucleus or sham control lesions were tested on activity, spatial reversal learning and delayed response learning. Performance of the lesioned groups of rats was compared with that of higher mammals with frontal and caudate lesions on similar problems. Rats with either type of frontal lesion were significantly more hyperactive than controls during the first hour of testing but were not impaired on reversal or delayed response learning. Caudate lesioned rats were significantly more hyperactive than the frontally lesioned groups, were significantly impaired on the reversal task and showed some indication of impairment on the delayed response task.