Cognitive functions of the basal forebrain cholinergic system in monkeys: memory or attention?

Voytko, Mary Lou

doi:10.1016/0166-4328(95)00143-3

Cited by 156 publications

(85 citation statements)

References 107 publications

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“…Cholinergic afferents from the basal forebrain influence information processing in many cortical regions, including the parietal and extrastriate regions relevant to the present work (Voytko, 1996;Sarter and Bruno, 1997;Sarter et al, 2006). There is strong evidence linking visuospatial attention (Corbetta et al, 2000;Kastner and Ungerleider, 2000), sustained attention (Coull, 1998;Lawrence et al, 2003), and short-term visual storage (Todd and Marois, 2004) to the intraparietal sulcus.…”

Section: Multiple Mechanisms Through Which Cholinergic Augmentation Cmentioning

confidence: 76%

Cholinergic Augmentation Modulates Visual Task Performance in Sleep-Deprived Young Adults

2008

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Using 24 h of total sleep deprivation to perturb normal cognitive function, we conducted a double-blind, placebo-controlled crossover study to evaluate the effect of the acetylcholinesterase inhibitor, donepezil, on behavioral performance and task-related brain activation in 28 healthy, young, adult volunteers. The behavioral tasks involved the parametric manipulation of visual short-term memory load and perceptual load in separate experiments indirectly evaluating attention. Sleep deprivation significantly reduced posterior cortical activation (intraparietal sulcus and extrastriate cortex) at all levels of visual memory as well as perceptual load. Donepezil modulated an individual's performance in both tasks in accordance to whether accuracy declined after sleep deprivation without treatment. Critically, there were significant correlations between donepezil-induced increases in neural activation in the posterior cortical areas and improvement in accuracy. Reduced visual short-term memory after sleep deprivation may thus originate from a decline in visual attention and/or visual processing. Cholinergic augmentation can alleviate these deficits in individuals vulnerable to the effects of sleep deprivation, but it may have neutral or negative effects on those resistant to sleep deprivation.

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Section: Multiple Mechanisms Through Which Cholinergic Augmentation Cmentioning

confidence: 76%

Cholinergic Augmentation Modulates Visual Task Performance in Sleep-Deprived Young Adults

2008

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“…† Based on primate work showing the basal forebrain cholinergic system mediates attention rather than memory (44,45), Robbins et al (46) have argued that the cholinergic system is only important for working memory under conditions of attentional load. Nevertheless, effects of cholinergic agents on memory have been seen in rodents (47), even when attention is carefully controlled (48).…”

Section: Expmentioning

confidence: 99%

Synergistic effects of genetic variation in nicotinic and muscarinic receptors on visual attention but not working memory

Greenwood

Lin

Sundararajan

et al. 2009

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

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It is widely appreciated that neurotransmission systems interact in their effects on human cognition, but those interactions have been little studied. We used genetics to investigate pharmacological evidence of synergisms in nicotinic/muscarinic interactions on cognition. We hypothesized that joint influences of nicotinic and muscarinic systems would be reflected in cognitive effects of normal variation in known SNPs in nicotinic (CHRNA4 rs1044396) and muscarinic (CHRM2 rs8191992) receptor genes. Exp. 1 used a task of cued visual search. The slope of the cue size/reaction time function showed a trend level effect of the muscarinic CHRM2 SNP, no effect of the nicotinic CHRNA4 SNP, but a significant interaction between the 2 SNPs. Slopes were steepest in individuals who were both CHRNA4 C/C and CHRM2 T/T homozygotes. To determine the specificity of this synergism, Exp. and phasic modes of cholinergic activity, we argue that reorienting attention to the target after invalid cues requires a phasic response, dependent on the nicotinic system, whereas orienting attention to valid cues requires a tonic response, dependent on the muscarinic system. Consistent with that, shifting and scaling after valid cues (tonic) were strongest in CHRNA4 C/C homozygotes who were also CHRM2 T/T homozygotes. This shows synergistic effects within the human cholinergic system. cholinergic ͉ genetics ͉ synergism ͉ cognition

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“…Cholinergic basal forebrain nuclei provide the major source of cholinergic input to the cerebral cortex. If these nuclei are lesioned, monkeys are impaired in detecting stimuli following invalid cues (Voytko, 1996). Conversely, increased cholinergic activity, achieved, for example, by systemic administration of the cholinergic agonist nicotine, was shown to speed reaction times (RTs) to invalidly cued stimuli Stewart et al, 2001;Phillips et al, 2000).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Nicotine Modulates Reorienting of Visuospatial Attention and Neural Activity in Human Parietal Cortex

Thiel

Zilles

Fink

2005

Neuropsychopharmacol

170

139

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Prior studies in animals and humans indicate that reorienting of visuospatial attention is modulated by the cholinergic agonist nicotine. We have previously identified neural correlates of alerting and reorienting attention in humans and found that the parietal cortex is specifically involved in reorienting. This study investigates whether the alerting and reorienting systems, especially in the parietal cortex, are modulated by nicotine. We used event-related functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and studied 15 nonsmoking volunteers under placebo and nicotine (NICORETTE s polacrilex gum 1 and 2 mg). Subjects performed a cued target detection task with four different types of randomly intermixed trials (no, neutral, valid, and invalid cue trials). Alerting was captured by comparing BOLD activity and reaction times (RTs) in neutrally cued trials with no cue trials. Reorienting was isolated by comparing invalidly with validly cued trials. On the behavioral level, nicotine affected reorienting of attention by speeding RTs in invalidly cued trials; alerting was not affected by nicotine. Neurally, however, nicotine modulated both attentional systems. Pharmacologic effects on alerting-related brain activity were mainly evident as modulation of BOLD responses in the right angular gyrus and right middle frontal gyrus due to a reduction of neural activity in no cue trials. In the reorienting system, effects of nicotine were mainly evident in the left intraparietal sulcus and precuneus and due to a reduction of neural activity in invalidly cued trials. We conclude that nicotine enhances reorienting of attention in visuospatial tasks and that one behavioral correlate of speeded RTs is reduced parietal activity.

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Cognitive functions of the basal forebrain cholinergic system in monkeys: memory or attention?

Cited by 156 publications

References 107 publications

Cholinergic Augmentation Modulates Visual Task Performance in Sleep-Deprived Young Adults

Cholinergic Augmentation Modulates Visual Task Performance in Sleep-Deprived Young Adults

Synergistic effects of genetic variation in nicotinic and muscarinic receptors on visual attention but not working memory

Nicotine Modulates Reorienting of Visuospatial Attention and Neural Activity in Human Parietal Cortex

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