EFFECTS OF CORTICAL LESIONS ON TACTILE DISCRIMINATIONS GRADED IN DIFFICULTY

Rats with somatosensory cortical lesions, occipital lesions, frontal lesions, frontal-occipital lesions, and no lesions were tested in a T-maze for acquisition of rough vs. smooth and a series of groove vs. smooth discriminations of increasing difficulty. The somatosensory lesioned animals showed severe performance deficits on the discriminations. Animals with lesions outside the primary somatosensory areas of the cortex did not differ from unlesioned animals, or from each other, on oven the most difficult task. © 1968.