Herrero J L, Roberts M J, Delicato L S, Gieselmann M A, Dayan P, Thiele A
Institute of Neuroscience, Newcastle University, Newcastle upon Tyne NE2 4HH, UK.
Nature. 2008 Aug 28;454(7208):1110-4. doi: 10.1038/nature07141. Epub 2008 Jul 16.
Attention exerts a strong influence over neuronal processing in cortical areas. It selectively increases firing rates and affects tuning properties, including changing receptive field locations and sizes. Although these effects are well studied, their cellular mechanisms are poorly understood. To study the cellular mechanisms, we combined iontophoretic pharmacological analysis of cholinergic receptors with single cell recordings in V1 while rhesus macaque monkeys (Macaca mulatta) performed a task that demanded top-down spatial attention. Attending to the receptive field of the V1 neuron under study caused an increase in firing rates. Here we show that this attentional modulation was enhanced by low doses of acetylcholine. Furthermore, applying the muscarinic antagonist scopolamine reduced attentional modulation, whereas the nicotinic antagonist mecamylamine had no systematic effect. These results demonstrate that muscarinic cholinergic mechanisms play a central part in mediating the effects of attention in V1.
注意力对皮质区域的神经元处理过程有着强大的影响。它选择性地提高 firing 速率并影响调谐特性，包括改变感受野的位置和大小。尽管这些效应已得到充分研究，但其细胞机制却知之甚少。为了研究细胞机制，我们在恒河猴执行一项需要自上而下空间注意力的任务时，将胆碱能受体的离子电泳药理学分析与 V1 区的单细胞记录相结合。关注正在研究的 V1 神经元的感受野会导致 firing 速率增加。我们在此表明，低剂量的乙酰胆碱会增强这种注意力调制。此外，应用毒蕈碱拮抗剂东莨菪碱会降低注意力调制，而烟碱拮抗剂美加明则没有系统性影响。这些结果表明，毒蕈碱胆碱能机制在介导 V1 区注意力效应中起核心作用。
