Raymond Kesner | University of Utah (original) (raw)
Papers by Raymond Kesner
Behavioral Neuroscience, 2001
The effect of medial temporal lobe damage on a 2-tone delay discrimination and reversal paradigm ... more The effect of medial temporal lobe damage on a 2-tone delay discrimination and reversal paradigm was examined in human classical eyeblink conditioning. Eight medial temporal lobe amnesic patients and their demographically matched controls were compared. Amnesic patients were able to distinguish between 2 tones during the initial discrimination phase of the experiment almost as well as control participants. Amnesic patients were not able to reverse the previously acquired 2-tone discrimination. In contrast, the control participants showed improved discrimination performance after the reversal of the tones. These findings support the hypothesis that the hippocampus and associated temporal lobe regions play a role in eyeblink conditioning that becomes essential in more complex versions of the task, such as the reversal of an acquired 2-tone discrimination.
Handbook of spatial cognition., 2013
The Journal of neuroscience : the official journal of the Society for Neuroscience, 1989
In order to analyze the functions of the hippocampus in the primate, and to advance the understan... more In order to analyze the functions of the hippocampus in the primate, and to advance the understanding of amnesia, the activity of 994 single hippocampal neurons in the monkey was analyzed during the performance of a task known to be affected by hippocampal damage in which both an object, and its position in space, must be remembered. The serial multiple object-place memory task required a memory for the position on a video monitor in which a given object had appeared previously. It was found that 9.3% of neurons recorded in the hippocampus and hippocampal gyrus had spatial fields in this and related tasks, in that they responded whenever there was a stimulus in some but not in other positions on the screen. We found that 2.4% of the neurons responded to a combination of spatial information and information about the object seen, in that they responded more the first time a particular object was seen in any position. Six of these neurons were found that showed this combination even mo...
The Journal of neuroscience : the official journal of the Society for Neuroscience, 1994
We describe here hippocampal cells that respond during whole-body motion when a monkey is moved o... more We describe here hippocampal cells that respond during whole-body motion when a monkey is moved on a remote-controlled robot-mounted platform in a cue-controlled test chamber (2 x 2 x 2 m). Some of these cells responded to linear motion, and others to axial rotation. Some of these cells responded when the same motion occurred without a view of the visual field. Such cells appeared to be driven by vestibular inputs. Other cells required a view of the visual field for their response, and these cells appeared to be driven by the visual motion relative to the monkey of the test chamber. Further evidence that this was the case was that some of the cells responded to rotation and linear motion of the test chamber while the monkey remained stationary. Other cells responded to combinations of whole-body motion and a view of the environment. These findings show that information about whole-body motion, as well as about where the animal is looking in an environment, is represented in the prim...
Advances in Behavioral Biology, 2009
Drug seeking in the context of stimuli associated with drug use contributes to recidivism in drug... more Drug seeking in the context of stimuli associated with drug use contributes to recidivism in drug-addicted people. Although numerous brain areas have been implicated in mediating the effects of drug-conditioned cues on drug-seeking behavior, the role of the dorsolateral striatum in such cue-induced reinstatement is less clear. Particularly, the neuronal populations in which plasticity occurs and in which subsequent activity
Neurobiology of learning and memory, 2009
The hippocampus is involved in encoding and integrating contextual information. Recently, it has ... more The hippocampus is involved in encoding and integrating contextual information. Recently, it has been suggested that the dorsal dentate gyrus (dDG) hippocampal subregion may mediate the formation of contextual representations of the spatial environment through a conjunctive encoding process whereby incoming multimodal information is integrated into a single higher-order representation. Despite anatomical evidence in support of this claim, behavioral evidence is limited. Therefore, a contextual associative learning paradigm was used to determine whether the dDG supports the formation of integrated contextual representations. Male Long-Evans rats were randomly assigned as controls or to receive bilateral intracranial infusions of colchicine into the dDG. Following recovery from surgery, each rat was tested on an appetitive task that required animals to form an association between a cue (odor) and a context to receive a food reward. Each rat received 10 trials per day and was tested for 10 consecutive days. Upon completion of testing, animals were tested on an additional two-choice olfactory and contextual discrimination task. The testing order was counterbalanced across animals. Results showed that control animals successfully acquired the contextual associative learning task for olfactory stimuli as indicated by improved performance across the 10 testing days. In contrast, animals with dDG lesions were impaired in the ability to acquire the odor-context associations. Results from follow-up odor and context discrimination tests indicated that both groups acquired the discriminations at similar rates. Therefore, it is unlikely that deficits in performance on the contextual associative learning task were due to an inability to discriminate between odors or contexts. The present findings provide further support for DG involvement in the formation of conjunctive contextual representations.
Methamphetamine (METH) use results in depletion of monoamines in the striatum. The purpose of thi... more Methamphetamine (METH) use results in depletion of monoamines in the striatum. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the relation between the degree of METH-induced monoamine depletion in the striatum and impairment on a striatally-dependent learning task in rats. Male Sprague-Dawley rats received four injections of METH (10 mg/kg) or saline at 2-h intervals. METH treatment produced a 38.5% (+/-5.6) and 46.7% (+/-6.7) dopamine (DA) depletion in the medial and lateral striatum, respectively. Serotonin (5-HT) was depleted 15.6% (+/-10.4) and 21.1% (+/-8.2) in the medial and lateral striatum, respectively. One month after treatment, rats were trained on a sequential-memory task on an 8-arm radial maze. METH-treated rats made significantly fewer direct movements between arms in the maze sequence across days of trials. The learning impairment was significantly correlated with the degree of DA depletion in the medial striatum, as well as serotonin tissue content in striatum. Only rats with a greater than 40% DA depletion in medial striatum showed significant impairments. These results provide additional evidence for METH-induced learning impairments and suggest that this impairment is dependent on the striatal monoamine loss, in general, and the degree of DA loss in medial striatum, in particular.
Neurobiology of Learning and Memory, 2011
While it is acknowledged that species specific differences are an implicit condition of comparati... more While it is acknowledged that species specific differences are an implicit condition of comparative studies, rodent models of prefrontal function serve a significant role in the acquisition of converging evidence on prefrontal function across levels of analysis and research techniques. The purpose of the present review is to examine whether the prefrontal cortex (PFC) in rats supports a variety of processes associated with executive function including working memory, temporal processing, planning (prospective coding), flexibility, rule learning, and decision making. Therefore, in this review we examined changes associated with working memory processes for spatial locations, visual objects, odors, tastes, and response domains or attributes, temporal processes including temporal order, sequence learning, prospective coding, behavioral flexibility associated with reversal learning and set shifting, paired associate learning, and decision making based on effort, time discounting, and uncertainty following damage to the PFC in rats. In addition, potential parallel processes of executive function in monkeys and humans based on several theories of subregional differentiation within the PFC will be presented. Specifically, theories based on domain or attribute specificity (Goldman-Rakic, 1996), level of processing (Petrides, 1996), rule learning based on complexity (Wise, Murray, & Gerfen, 1996), executive functions based on connectivity with other brain regions associated with top-down control (Miller & Cohen, 2001), are presented and applied to PFC function in rats with the aim of understanding subregional specificity in the rat PFC. The data suggest that there is subregional specificity within the PFC of rats, monkey and humans and there are parallel cognitive functions of the different subregions of the PFC in rats, monkeys and humans.
Behavioral Neuroscience, 2001
The effect of medial temporal lobe damage on a 2-tone delay discrimination and reversal paradigm ... more The effect of medial temporal lobe damage on a 2-tone delay discrimination and reversal paradigm was examined in human classical eyeblink conditioning. Eight medial temporal lobe amnesic patients and their demographically matched controls were compared. Amnesic patients were able to distinguish between 2 tones during the initial discrimination phase of the experiment almost as well as control participants. Amnesic patients were not able to reverse the previously acquired 2-tone discrimination. In contrast, the control participants showed improved discrimination performance after the reversal of the tones. These findings support the hypothesis that the hippocampus and associated temporal lobe regions play a role in eyeblink conditioning that becomes essential in more complex versions of the task, such as the reversal of an acquired 2-tone discrimination.
Handbook of spatial cognition., 2013
The Journal of neuroscience : the official journal of the Society for Neuroscience, 1989
In order to analyze the functions of the hippocampus in the primate, and to advance the understan... more In order to analyze the functions of the hippocampus in the primate, and to advance the understanding of amnesia, the activity of 994 single hippocampal neurons in the monkey was analyzed during the performance of a task known to be affected by hippocampal damage in which both an object, and its position in space, must be remembered. The serial multiple object-place memory task required a memory for the position on a video monitor in which a given object had appeared previously. It was found that 9.3% of neurons recorded in the hippocampus and hippocampal gyrus had spatial fields in this and related tasks, in that they responded whenever there was a stimulus in some but not in other positions on the screen. We found that 2.4% of the neurons responded to a combination of spatial information and information about the object seen, in that they responded more the first time a particular object was seen in any position. Six of these neurons were found that showed this combination even mo...
The Journal of neuroscience : the official journal of the Society for Neuroscience, 1994
We describe here hippocampal cells that respond during whole-body motion when a monkey is moved o... more We describe here hippocampal cells that respond during whole-body motion when a monkey is moved on a remote-controlled robot-mounted platform in a cue-controlled test chamber (2 x 2 x 2 m). Some of these cells responded to linear motion, and others to axial rotation. Some of these cells responded when the same motion occurred without a view of the visual field. Such cells appeared to be driven by vestibular inputs. Other cells required a view of the visual field for their response, and these cells appeared to be driven by the visual motion relative to the monkey of the test chamber. Further evidence that this was the case was that some of the cells responded to rotation and linear motion of the test chamber while the monkey remained stationary. Other cells responded to combinations of whole-body motion and a view of the environment. These findings show that information about whole-body motion, as well as about where the animal is looking in an environment, is represented in the prim...
Advances in Behavioral Biology, 2009
Drug seeking in the context of stimuli associated with drug use contributes to recidivism in drug... more Drug seeking in the context of stimuli associated with drug use contributes to recidivism in drug-addicted people. Although numerous brain areas have been implicated in mediating the effects of drug-conditioned cues on drug-seeking behavior, the role of the dorsolateral striatum in such cue-induced reinstatement is less clear. Particularly, the neuronal populations in which plasticity occurs and in which subsequent activity
Neurobiology of learning and memory, 2009
The hippocampus is involved in encoding and integrating contextual information. Recently, it has ... more The hippocampus is involved in encoding and integrating contextual information. Recently, it has been suggested that the dorsal dentate gyrus (dDG) hippocampal subregion may mediate the formation of contextual representations of the spatial environment through a conjunctive encoding process whereby incoming multimodal information is integrated into a single higher-order representation. Despite anatomical evidence in support of this claim, behavioral evidence is limited. Therefore, a contextual associative learning paradigm was used to determine whether the dDG supports the formation of integrated contextual representations. Male Long-Evans rats were randomly assigned as controls or to receive bilateral intracranial infusions of colchicine into the dDG. Following recovery from surgery, each rat was tested on an appetitive task that required animals to form an association between a cue (odor) and a context to receive a food reward. Each rat received 10 trials per day and was tested for 10 consecutive days. Upon completion of testing, animals were tested on an additional two-choice olfactory and contextual discrimination task. The testing order was counterbalanced across animals. Results showed that control animals successfully acquired the contextual associative learning task for olfactory stimuli as indicated by improved performance across the 10 testing days. In contrast, animals with dDG lesions were impaired in the ability to acquire the odor-context associations. Results from follow-up odor and context discrimination tests indicated that both groups acquired the discriminations at similar rates. Therefore, it is unlikely that deficits in performance on the contextual associative learning task were due to an inability to discriminate between odors or contexts. The present findings provide further support for DG involvement in the formation of conjunctive contextual representations.
Methamphetamine (METH) use results in depletion of monoamines in the striatum. The purpose of thi... more Methamphetamine (METH) use results in depletion of monoamines in the striatum. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the relation between the degree of METH-induced monoamine depletion in the striatum and impairment on a striatally-dependent learning task in rats. Male Sprague-Dawley rats received four injections of METH (10 mg/kg) or saline at 2-h intervals. METH treatment produced a 38.5% (+/-5.6) and 46.7% (+/-6.7) dopamine (DA) depletion in the medial and lateral striatum, respectively. Serotonin (5-HT) was depleted 15.6% (+/-10.4) and 21.1% (+/-8.2) in the medial and lateral striatum, respectively. One month after treatment, rats were trained on a sequential-memory task on an 8-arm radial maze. METH-treated rats made significantly fewer direct movements between arms in the maze sequence across days of trials. The learning impairment was significantly correlated with the degree of DA depletion in the medial striatum, as well as serotonin tissue content in striatum. Only rats with a greater than 40% DA depletion in medial striatum showed significant impairments. These results provide additional evidence for METH-induced learning impairments and suggest that this impairment is dependent on the striatal monoamine loss, in general, and the degree of DA loss in medial striatum, in particular.
Neurobiology of Learning and Memory, 2011
While it is acknowledged that species specific differences are an implicit condition of comparati... more While it is acknowledged that species specific differences are an implicit condition of comparative studies, rodent models of prefrontal function serve a significant role in the acquisition of converging evidence on prefrontal function across levels of analysis and research techniques. The purpose of the present review is to examine whether the prefrontal cortex (PFC) in rats supports a variety of processes associated with executive function including working memory, temporal processing, planning (prospective coding), flexibility, rule learning, and decision making. Therefore, in this review we examined changes associated with working memory processes for spatial locations, visual objects, odors, tastes, and response domains or attributes, temporal processes including temporal order, sequence learning, prospective coding, behavioral flexibility associated with reversal learning and set shifting, paired associate learning, and decision making based on effort, time discounting, and uncertainty following damage to the PFC in rats. In addition, potential parallel processes of executive function in monkeys and humans based on several theories of subregional differentiation within the PFC will be presented. Specifically, theories based on domain or attribute specificity (Goldman-Rakic, 1996), level of processing (Petrides, 1996), rule learning based on complexity (Wise, Murray, & Gerfen, 1996), executive functions based on connectivity with other brain regions associated with top-down control (Miller & Cohen, 2001), are presented and applied to PFC function in rats with the aim of understanding subregional specificity in the rat PFC. The data suggest that there is subregional specificity within the PFC of rats, monkey and humans and there are parallel cognitive functions of the different subregions of the PFC in rats, monkeys and humans.