EFFECT OF BILATERAL ABLATION OF CINGULATE AREA ON BEHAVIOUR OF CATS

Abstract

In cats, bilateral ablation of the cingulate area in the frontal lobe produces a syndrome characterized by confused, perseverative, obsessive behavior, and a plastic tendency whereby the animal may be posed for long periods of time in bizarre positions. There is also evidence of change in emotional status such that rage reactions are more easily elicited. This syndrome does not appear following removal of any other cerebral cortical area but it is intensified and prolonged by the additional removal of the frontal poles or of additional tissue from the mesial surface of the frontal poles. Bilateral ablation of the motor areas, although it abolishes placing and hopping responses and results in consequent postural disability, does not produce the confusional and plastic condition which follows bilateral ablation of the cingulate areas. The syndrome which follows bilateral cingulate ablation is similar to that described by Barris in 1937. This syndrome has also some of the elements of postural confusion and of apraxia described in man following similar lesions. The hypomotility and inertia described by others in man and monkey as related to cingulate ablation may be the result of some motor element or dyspraxia.