Effect of dorsal hippocampal lesion compared to dorsal hippocampal blockade by atropine on reference memory in vision deprived rats.

In order to study the primacy of the hippocampus in place learning function 24 male adult albino rats were hippocampally-lesioned in dorsal hippocampus involving fornical damage (group I); sham operated for comparison with group I (group II); cannulated for instillation of atropine sulphate in the same loci as group I (group III); and cannulated for instillation of saline which served as control for group III (group IV). All the animals were enucleated and their reference memory (long-term memory) was tested, using open 4-arm radial maze. There was loss of reference memory in groups I and III.

Four-arm radial open maze (FAROM) as a tool for assessing the effect of atropine in spatial memory of the rats.

Place learning behaviour for working (short term) memory and reference (long term) memory is studied with the Four-arm radial open maze (FAROM) in 18 rats divided equally in three groups. In group I, 0.5 mg of atropine was injected intra-peritoneally 30 minutes before the trial.