Summary
Monkeys with bilateral transections of the fornix were severely but selectively impaired at learning visuospatial conditional tasks presented in a Wisconsin General Test Apparatus. Bilateral transplantation of cholinergic-rich embryonic basal forebrain tissue into the hippocampus led to complete recovery from this specific learning impairment across a range of task difficulties. Administration of the direct cholinergic agonist pilocarpine to ungrafted animals immediately before testing also reduced this impairment, suggesting that the graft-associated recovery was mediated by acetylcholine release. Transection of the fornix produced a marked loss of acetylcholinesterase (AChE) staining confined to hippocampus and entorhinal cortex relative to controls. In all transplanted animals densely AChE-staining cellular masses were seen bilaterally in temporal lobe structures, with fibre outgrowth into surrounding host tissue.
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Ridley, R.M., Thornley, H.D., Baker, H.F. et al. Cholinergic neural transplants into hippocampus restore learning ability in monkeys with fornix transections. Exp Brain Res 83, 533–538 (1991). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00229831
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00229831