Functional and laminar dissociations between muscarinic and nicotinic cholinergic neuromodulation in the tree shrew primary visual cortex

摘要: Acetylcholine is an important neuromodulator involved in cognitive function. The impact of cholinergic neuromodulation on computations within the cortical microcircuit not well understood. Here we investigate effects layer-specific drug application tree shrew primary visual cortex during stimulation with drifting grating stimuli varying contrast and orientation. We describe differences between muscarinic nicotinic terms both layer attribute representation. Nicotinic receptor activation enhanced response granular input cortex, while tending to reduce neural selectivity for orientation across all layers. Muscarinic modestly layers, tended improve tuning. This resulted highest supra- infragranular where was already greatest absence pharmacological stimulation. Our results indicate that laminar position plays a crucial part functional consequences stimulation, consistent differential distribution receptors. receptors function enhance sensory representations arriving whereas act boost computation findings suggest close homology mechanisms primate cortices.