Cell class-specific modulation of attentional signals by acetylcholine in macaque frontal eye field

Abstract

Attention is critical to high-level cognition, and attentional deficits are a hallmark of cognitive dysfunction. A key transmitter for attentional control is acetylcholine, but its cellular actions in attention-controlling areas remain poorly understood. Here we delineate how muscarinic and nicotinic receptors affect basic neuronal excitability and attentional control signals in different cell types in macaque frontal eye field. We found that broad spiking and narrow spiking cells both require muscarinic and nicotinic receptors for normal excitability, thereby affecting ongoing or stimulus-driven activity. Attentional control signals depended on muscarinic, not nicotinic receptors in broad spiking cells, while they depended on both muscarinic and nicotinic receptors in narrow spiking cells. Cluster analysis revealed that muscarinic and nicotinic effects on attentional control signals were highly selective even for different subclasses of narrow spiking cells and of broad spiking cells. These results demonstrate that cholinergic receptors are critical to establish attentional control signals in the frontal eye field in a cell type-specific manner.

Interneuron Specific Gamma Synchronization Indexes Cue Uncertainty and Prediction Errors in Lateral Prefrontal and Anterior Cingulate Cortex

“…Fig. 5 ) similar to previous clustering results (Ardid et al, 2015; Dasilva et al, 2019). Narrow spiking neurons fell into three e-types .…”

“…We next asked whether the narrow spiking, putative interneurons that encode p (choice) in LPFC and RPE in ACC are from the same electrophysiological cell type, or e-type (Markram et al, 2015). Prior studies have distinguished different narrow spiking e-types using the cells’ spike train pattern and spike waveform duration (Ardid et al, 2015; Dasilva et al, 2019; Trainito et al, 2019; Banaie Boroujeni et al, 2020b). We followed this approach using a cluster analysis to distinguish e-types based on spike waveform duration parameters (inferred hyperpolarization rate and time to 25% repolarization), on whether their spike trains showed regular or variable interspike intervals (local variability ‘ LV ’), or more or less variable firing relative to their mean interspike interval (coefficient of variation ‘ CV ’).…”

“…Comparisons of protein expression with action potential spike width have shown for prefrontal cortex that >95% of all PV+ and ~87% of all SOM+ interneurons show narrow spike width (Ghaderi et al, 2018;Torres-Gomez et al, 2020), while narrow spikes are also known to occur in ~20% of VIP interneurons (Torres-Gomez et al, 2020) among other GABAergic neurons (Krimer et al, 2005;Zaitsev et al, 2009), and (at least in primate motor cortex) in a subgroup of pyramidal cells (Soares et al, 2017). In addition, electrophysiological characterization have shown at least three different types of firing patterns in narrow spiking neurons of monkeys during attention demanding task (Ardid et al, 2015;Dasilva et al, 2019;Trainito et al, 2019). Taken together, these insights raise the possibility that spike width and electrophysiology will allow identifying the interneuron subtypes that are particularly important for prefrontal cortex functions.…”

Make a Left Turn: Cortico‐Striatal Circuitry Mediating the Attentional Control of Complex Movements

“…1). Consistent with the view that M1 stimulation is necessary for the generation of high-frequency oscillations and cross-frequency coupling, and thus for cues to control behavior, 34,49,[52][53][54] the administration of an M1 positive allosteric modulator (PAM) partly rescued the detection rates of rats with partial removal of cholinergic inputs to the cortex 55 and, in a rodent model of parkinsonian falls (see later), reduced the rates of falls. 56…”

Directed information exchange between cortical layers in macaque V1 and V4 and its modulation by selective attention

“…This corresponds to the period when attention was focused on the relevant stimulus, and when attentional modulation of spiking activity was most profound ( SI Appendix , Fig. S11 ) ( 25 , 26 ). We used bipolar rereferencing to improve spatial specificity of LFPs ( Methods and SI Appendix ).…”