title: Acetylcholine release in hippocampus and striatum during testing on a rewarded spontaneous alternation task.
abstract: The present experiment tested male Sprague-Dawley rats for spontaneous alternation performance in a food-rewarded Y-shaped maze. Microdialysis samples, later assessed for acetylcholine concentration, were collected from the hippocampus and striatum of each rat prior to and during testing; testing sessions lasted 20 min. Early in testing, rats alternated at a rate of 72%. Alternation scores increased throughout the 20-min testing session and reached 93% during the last 5 min. The behavioral findings suggest that, during testing, rats changed the basis for their performance from a spatial working memory strategy to a persistent turning strategy. ACh release in both hippocampus and striatum increased at the onset of testing. Increases in ACh release in the striatum began at 18% above baseline during the first 5 min of testing and steadily increased reaching 58% above baseline during the final 5 min. The progressive rise of striatum ACh release during testing occurred at about the time rats adopted a persistent turning strategy. In contrast, ACh release in the hippocampus increased by 50% with the onset of testing and remained at this level until declining slightly during the last 5 min of testing. The relative changes in ACh release in the striatum and hippocampus resulted in a close negative relationship between the ratio of ACh release in the hippocampus/striatum and alternation scores.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Champaign, IL 61820, USA.
authors.forename: Jason C
authors.initials: JC
authors.lastname: Pych
authors.forename: Qing
authors.initials: Q
authors.lastname: Chang
authors.forename: Cynthia
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Colon-Rivera
authors.forename: Paul E
authors.initials: PE
authors.lastname: Gold
mesh_terms: D000109:Acetylcholine / Q000378:metabolism*; D000818:Animals; D001245:Association Learning / Q000502:physiology; D003342:Corpus Striatum / Q000378:metabolism*; D005106:Exploratory Behavior / Q000502:physiology*; D006624:Hippocampus / Q000378:metabolism*; D008297:Male; D018782:Maze Learning / Q000502:physiology; D008570:Memory, Short-Term / Q000502:physiology*; D051381:Rats; D017207:Rats, Sprague-Dawley; D012054:Reinforcement, Psychology; D013997:Time Factors
chemical_list: D000109:Acetylcholine