| Summary: | To date, research using rodent models has primarily dealt with the visual aspects of attention, while in the present research, we examined neurochemical modulation of attentional processes using both a visual and an olfactory five choice serial reaction time task (5-CSRTT). The nucleus basalis magnocellularis (NBM) in the basal forebrain is the primary source of cortical cholinergic input, which is thought to have an important modulatory effect on rat attentional processes. Thus, after successful acquisition of the task, the rats were subjected to either a cholinergic immunotoxic or sham lesion surgery of the NBM. Cortical cholinergic deafferentation of the cortical mantle was induced by bilaterally infusing 0.2 µg/µl of the cholinergic immunotoxin, 192 IgG-saporin, into the NBM (saporin-lesion). Reduction of cortical cholinergic modulation led to comparable attentional impairments in the saporin-lesion group, relative to the sham-lesioned group, on both visual and olfactory versions of the 5-CSRTT.
|
|---|
