Biosciences Institute, Newcastle University, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE1 7RU, UK.
Research Unit for ORL - Head and Neck Surgery and Audiology, Odense University Hospital, Odense, Denmark.
Sci Rep. 2022 Apr 28;12(1):6914. doi: 10.1038/s41598-022-10634-w.
Cognitive neuroscience has made great strides in understanding the neural substrates of attention, but our understanding of its neuropharmacology remains incomplete. Although dopamine has historically been studied in relation to frontal functioning, emerging evidence suggests important dopaminergic influences in parietal cortex. We recorded single- and multi-unit activity whilst iontophoretically administering dopaminergic agonists and antagonists while rhesus macaques performed a spatial attention task. Out of 88 units, 50 revealed activity modulation by drug administration. Dopamine inhibited firing rates according to an inverted-U shaped dose-response curve and increased gain variability. D1 receptor antagonists diminished firing rates according to a monotonic function and interacted with attention modulating gain variability. Finally, both drugs decreased the pupil light reflex. These data show that dopamine shapes neuronal responses and modulates aspects of attentional processing in parietal cortex.
认知神经科学在理解注意力的神经基质方面取得了重大进展，但我们对其神经药理学的理解仍不完整。尽管多巴胺在历史上一直与额叶功能有关，但新出现的证据表明，顶叶皮层存在重要的多巴胺能影响。我们在恒电流给药时记录了猕猴执行空间注意任务时的单个和多个单元的活动。在 88 个单元中，有 50 个单元的活动受到药物给药的调制。多巴胺根据倒 U 形剂量反应曲线抑制放电率，并增加增益变异性。D1 受体拮抗剂根据单调函数降低放电率，并与注意力调节增益变异性相互作用。最后，两种药物都降低了瞳孔光反射。这些数据表明，多巴胺塑造了神经元的反应，并调节了顶叶皮层注意力处理的各个方面。
