Attention and prepulse inhibition: the effects of task-relevant, irrelevant, and no-task conditions

Precedence-effect-induced enhancement of prepulse inhibition in socially reared but not isolation-reared rats

“…It has been known that the amplitude of the acoustic startle reflex is enhanced when a stimulus previously paired with footshock is presented before the startling stimulus (e.g., Brown 2006; Bradley et al, 1993;Filion & Poje, 2003;Grillon & Davis, 1997;Heekeren et al, 2004;Schell et al, 2000;Thorne et al, 2005). Previous studies have shown that rats are able to detect a correlation change between sounds delivered from two spatially separated locations (J.…”

“…In humans, selective attention to the prepulse enhances PPI (e.g., Filion & Poje, 2003;Heekeren, Meincke, Geyer, & Gouzoulis-Mayfrank, 2004;Schell, Wynn, Dawson, Sinaii, & Niebala, 2000;Thorne, Dawsona, & Schell, 2005), and PPI is more pronounced when the prepulse is emotionally salient than when it is a neutral stimulus (Bradley, Codispoti, & Lang, 2006;Bradley, Cuthbert, & Lang, 1993). In rats with normal rearing, when the prepulse becomes fear conditioned (J.…”

Disruption of prepulse inhibition of the startle reflex by the preferential D3 agonist ropinirole in healthy males

“…The ropinirole-induced PPI disruption at the 80-but not 50-ms lead interval is perhaps best explained by a DRD 3 -mediated reduction of PFC DA levels; one corollary of this proposal is that 50 ms would be too short an interval for cognitive "top-down" influences from the PFC to fully exert their modulatory effect on the subcortical startle circuit. Indeed, independent evidence from attention-to-prepulse paradigms has shown that intervals up to 60 ms, but not lower, may be prone to selective attention effects (Thorne et al 2005), and we have shown that performance in PFC-dependent tasks correlates with PPI at 80 ms lead interval Bitsios et al 2006). Moreover, functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) studies have shown that PPI at longer (120 ms), but not shorter (30 ms), lead intervals is associated with cortical activation (Kumari et al 2006).…”

Startle response and prepulse inhibition modulation by positive- and negative-induced affect

“…Considering that dopamine plays an important role in the regulation of attentional processing (e.g., Ashby, Isen, & Turken, 1999;Nieoullon, 2002), and that increasing attention to the prepulse increase PPI (e.g., Elden, & Flaten, 2002;Dawson, Hazlett, Filion, Nuechterlein, & Schell, 1993;Thorne, Dawson, & Schell, 2005), the observed reduction of PPI during the induction of a positive Finally, the reported data are also relevant because they can contribute to the understanding of startle and PPI modulation as a function of clinical pathologies. Thus, it has been reported deficits in PPI in schizophrenia patients (e.g., Braff, Swerdlow, & Geyer, 1999;Braff, Geyer, Light, Sprock, Perry, Cadenhead, & Swerdlow, 2001), in obsessive-compulsive patients (Hoenig, Hochrein, Quednow, and Wagner, 2005), in panic disorder patients (Ludewig, Geyer, Ramseier, Vollenweider, Rechsteiner, & Cattapan-Ludewig, 2005), or in bipolar disorder patients (Perry, Minassian, Feifel, and Braff, 2001).…”