MEMORY DISTURBANCES, EYELID CONDITIONING, STARTLE AND ORIENTING REACTIONS

  • 1 January 1981
    • journal article
    • research article
    • Vol. 137  (1) , 39-47
Abstract
Patients with memory disturbances were submitted to eyelid classical conditioning procedure in which a sound was reinforced at a 50% rate by an air puff. They were compared to normal subjects and to patients with unilateral forebrain lesions. Six patients with mesodiencephalic lesions (mamillary bodies, fornix, cingulum) had no conditioning while 2 patients with bilateral temporal lesions had normal conditioning. Startle and orienting reactions were very weak in patients with mesodiencephalic lesions and normal in patients with bilateral temporal lesions. The startle and orienting reaction impairment can be related to attention disturbances leading to the lack of conditioning.