“Extinction” to bilateral simultaneous stimulation in the monkey

Publisher Website
Google Scholar
Abstract
Thirteen young monkeys (Macaca apeclosa) were trained to discriminate a mild electrical pulse to the right, left, or both hands simultaneously by pushing one of 3 button switches located on their right, left, or midline, respectively. Lesions of the parietal or frontal cortex resulted in an error bias postoperatlvely to such an extent that on bilateral simultaneous stimulation they manifested a tendency, in varying degree, to press the button that indicated a single stimulus to the unaffected hand alone. This pattern of behavior simulates the "extinction" syndrome in certain human neurological patients and is the basis for studying this phenomenon in an experimental animal. As in the human being, the extinction syndrome in the monkey could fluctuate daily and was both variable and labile, appearing clearly in some monkeys and only slightly, if at all, in others. In some it persisted for more than 30 days, and in others it disappeared within one week, to addition, a significant tendency was observed in our monkeys to respond to a single stimulus on the unaffected hand as if both hands were stimulated simultaneously; this pattern has not been described in the human being. No correlation between the incidence or severity of the extinction syndrome and the extent of the lesion was found.

This publication has 0 references indexed in Scilit: