La mémoire chez l'animal : évolution récente de quelques concepts utilisés en psychophysiologie

Abstract

Summary : Recent trends in animal memory : Functional dissociations and the hippocampus. This paper discusses brain-behavior relationships in animal memory and some methods which allow the use of experimental data for a more general understanding of brain processes underlying memory. In a first part, a brief overview reveals some critical developments which have occurred in the last 20 years. Included among these are the analysis of cognitive processes in animal behavior, the increasing amount of anatomical and physiological data showing that the limbic system is functionally associated with the neocortex, and the proposition by O'Keefe and Nadel (1978) of a neural substrate for cognitive maps in rats. In addition, two methodological trends are considered, the development of specifically spatial tasks for rats and monkeys, and, more generally, the tendency to use equivalent tasks in animais and humans. In a second part, we discuss some current concepts used in experimental approaches to dissociate memory functions, and the conditions under which these concepts can be applied to dissociations observed in animals and humans. First, we consider the value of spatial memory as a specific hippocampal function. Subsequently, we analyze whether memory components such as working or declarative memory are specific enough to account for dissociations induced by hippocampal lesions. Key-words : spatial memory, working memory, declarative memory, hippocampus.