The current studies investigate the behavioral and anatomical changes after lesions at different ages of the cingulate cortex. Rats received lesions of the posterior cingulate cortex (PCing) or the anterior and posterior cingulate cortex (Total) at: postnatal day 4 (P4); day 10 (P10), or in adulthood (P120). Rats were trained in the Morris water maze, the Whishaw reaching task, conditioned taste aversion (CTA), and their activity was monitored over 48 hours. The general finding was a significant behavioral recovery on P10 animals regardless the size of the lesion. This recovery was associated with an increase in dendritic arborization in P10 animals with the PCing removed and a partial regeneration of the midline tissue in the Total P10 animals. These results suggest that damage to the cingulate cortex at P10 is associated with substantial behavioral and anatomical plasticity and that removal of the frontal midline tissue stimulates a regenerative process in more posterior cortex that does not occur otherwise. / ix, 111 leaves : ill. ; 29 cm.

When given a choice between getting a high reward that requires climbing a high ramp or pressing a lever multiple times, versus freely obtaining a low reward, healthy rats prefer the former, while rats with lesions to the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) prefer the latter. We developed two novel effort tasks to examine if ACC mediates other types of physical effort (weight-lifting) as well as emotional effort (courage). We replicated previous findings on a modified version of the ramp-climbing task, showing that ACC lesions impair these decisions. Lesions of ACC did not impair weight-lifting effort, even when higher levels of effort were used and training on the task was eliminated. Initially, lesions of ACC did not impair courage effort. When the task effort was subsequently increased, rats with ACC lesions showed a failure to adapt to novelty throughout testing. This research indicated that not all effort is mediated by ACC. / xii, 177 leaves : ill. ; 29 cm