Lin Shih-Chieh, Brown Ritchie E, Hussain Shuler Marshall G, Petersen Carl C H, Kepecs Adam
National Institute on Aging, National Institutes of Health, Baltimore, Maryland 21224,
Department of Psychiatry, Veterans Administration Boston Healthcare System and Harvard Medical School, Brockton, Massachusetts 02301.
J Neurosci. 2015 Oct 14;35(41):13896-903. doi: 10.1523/JNEUROSCI.2590-15.2015.
The basal forebrain (BF) houses major ascending projections to the entire neocortex that have long been implicated in arousal, learning, and attention. The disruption of the BF has been linked with major neurological disorders, such as coma and Alzheimer's disease, as well as in normal cognitive aging. Although it is best known for its cholinergic neurons, the BF is in fact an anatomically and neurochemically complex structure. Recent studies using transgenic mouse lines to target specific BF cell types have led to a renaissance in the study of the BF and are beginning to yield new insights about cell-type-specific circuit mechanisms during behavior. These approaches enable us to determine the behavioral conditions under which cholinergic and noncholinergic BF neurons are activated and how they control cortical processing to influence behavior. Here we discuss recent advances that have expanded our knowledge about this poorly understood brain region and laid the foundation for future cell-type-specific manipulations to modulate arousal, attention, and cortical plasticity in neurological disorders.
Although the basal forebrain is best known for, and often equated with, acetylcholine-containing neurons that provide most of the cholinergic innervation of the neocortex, it is in fact an anatomically and neurochemically complex structure. Recent studies using transgenic mouse lines to target specific cell types in the basal forebrain have led to a renaissance in this field and are beginning to dissect circuit mechanisms in the basal forebrain during behavior. This review discusses recent advances in the roles of basal forebrain cholinergic and noncholinergic neurons in cognition via their dynamic modulation of cortical activity.
基底前脑（BF）包含向整个新皮层的主要上行投射，长期以来一直被认为与觉醒、学习和注意力有关。基底前脑的破坏与重大神经系统疾病有关，如昏迷和阿尔茨海默病，以及正常的认知衰老。尽管基底前脑以其胆碱能神经元最为人所知，但实际上它是一个在解剖学和神经化学上都很复杂的结构。最近利用转基因小鼠品系靶向特定基底前脑细胞类型的研究，引发了基底前脑研究的复兴，并开始在行为过程中对细胞类型特异性的神经回路机制产生新的见解。这些方法使我们能够确定胆碱能和非胆碱能基底前脑神经元被激活的行为条件，以及它们如何控制皮层加工以影响行为。在这里，我们讨论了最近的进展，这些进展扩展了我们对这个了解甚少的脑区的认识，并为未来通过细胞类型特异性操作来调节神经系统疾病中的觉醒、注意力和皮层可塑性奠定了基础。
尽管基底前脑最为人所知，并且常常被等同于含有乙酰胆碱的神经元，这些神经元为新皮层提供了大部分胆碱能神经支配，但实际上它是一个在解剖学和神经化学上都很复杂的结构。最近利用转基因小鼠品系靶向基底前脑中特定细胞类型的研究，引发了该领域的复兴，并开始剖析行为过程中基底前脑的神经回路机制。这篇综述讨论了基底前脑胆碱能和非胆碱能神经元通过动态调节皮层活动在认知中的作用的最新进展。
