Cooperation between the hippocampus and the entorhinal cortex in spatial memory: A disconnection study

It has been recently shown that lesions of parahippocampal areas including the entorhinal cortex do not disrupt place learning in the water maze, suggesting that the hippocampo-cortical circuitry is not important for spatial memory [Burwell RD, Saddoris MP, Bucci DJ, Wiig KA. Corticohippocampal contributions to spatial and contextual learning. J Neurosci 2004;24:3826–36]. The aim of the present study was to tax more directly the cooperation between the hippocampus and entorhinal cortex in two different spatial tasks, a place navigation task and a spontaneous object exploration task, using a disconnection procedure. Damaging the entorhinal–hippocampal system induced impairments in the two tasks but only in the spatial object exploration task rats with contralateral lesions displayed a greater deficit than rats with ipsilateral lesions. The results suggest that the cooperation between the hippocampus and the entorhinal cortex is modulated by the nature of the task and the cognitive processes involved in formation of spatial memory.