Department of Psychology, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan 48109-8862, USA.
J Neurosci. 2011 Jun 29;31(26):9760-71. doi: 10.1523/JNEUROSCI.1902-11.2011.
Sustaining and recovering attentional performance requires interactions between the brain's motivation and attention systems. The first experiment demonstrated that in rats performing a sustained attention task (SAT), presentation of a distractor (dSAT) augmented performance-associated increases in cholinergic neurotransmission in prefrontal cortex. Because stimulation of NMDA receptors in the shell of the nucleus accumbens activates PFC cholinergic neurotransmission, a second experiment demonstrated that bilateral infusions of NMDA into the NAc shell, but not core, improved dSAT performance to levels observed in the absence of a distractor. A third experiment demonstrated that removal of prefrontal or posterior parietal cholinergic inputs, by intracortical infusions of the cholinotoxin 192 IgG-saporin, attenuated the beneficial effects of NMDA on dSAT performance. Mesolimbic activation of cholinergic projections to the cortex benefits the cognitive control of attentional performance by enhancing the detection of cues and the filtering of distractors.
维持和恢复注意力表现需要大脑的动机和注意力系统之间的相互作用。第一个实验表明，在执行持续注意力任务（SAT）的大鼠中，呈现分心物（dSAT）会增强前额叶皮层中与表现相关的胆碱能神经传递。由于在伏隔核壳中刺激 NMDA 受体可激活 PFC 胆碱能神经传递，第二个实验表明，双侧 NMDA 注入 NAc 壳而不是核心，可提高 dSAT 表现，达到在没有分心物的情况下观察到的水平。第三个实验表明，通过在皮质内注射胆碱能毒素 192 IgG-saporin 去除前额叶或顶叶皮质的胆碱能输入，会削弱 NMDA 对 dSAT 表现的有益影响。中脑边缘系统对皮层胆碱能投射的激活通过增强对线索的检测和对分心物的过滤，有益于注意力表现的认知控制。
