title: Cholinergic modulation of the medial prefrontal cortex: the role of nicotinic receptors in attention and regulation of neuronal activity.
abstract: Acetylcholine (ACh) release in the medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) is crucial for normal cognitive performance. Despite the fact that many have studied how ACh affects neuronal processing in the mPFC and thereby influences attention behavior, there is still a lot unknown about how this occurs. Here we will review the evidence that cholinergic modulation of the mPFC plays a role in attention and we will summarize the current knowledge about the role between ACh receptors (AChRs) and behavior and how ACh receptor activation changes processing in the cortical microcircuitry. Recent evidence implicates fast phasic release of ACh in cue detection and attention. This review will focus mainly on the fast ionotropic nicotinic receptors and less on the metabotropic muscarinic receptors. Finally, we will review limitations of the existing studies and address how innovative technologies might push the field forward in order to gain understanding into the relation between ACh, neuronal activity and behavior.
authors.affiliation: Department of Integrative Neurophysiology, Center for Neurogenomics and Cognitive Research, Neuroscience Campus Amsterdam, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, Netherlands ; McGovern Institute for Brain Research, Massachusetts Institute of Technology Cambridge, MA, USA.
authors.forename: Bernard
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Bloem
authors.affiliation: Max Planck Institute for Brain Research, Frankfurt am Main Germany.
authors.forename: Rogier B
authors.initials: RB
authors.lastname: Poorthuis
authors.affiliation: Department of Integrative Neurophysiology, Center for Neurogenomics and Cognitive Research, Neuroscience Campus Amsterdam, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, Netherlands.
authors.forename: Huibert D
authors.initials: HD
authors.lastname: Mansvelder
mesh_terms: D000109:Acetylcholine / Q000378:metabolism*; D000818:Animals; D001288:Attention / Q000502:physiology*; D006801:Humans; D009474:Neurons / Q000378:metabolism*; D017397:Prefrontal Cortex / Q000378:metabolism*; D011978:Receptors, Nicotinic / Q000378:metabolism*
chemical_list: D011978:Receptors, Nicotinic; D000109:Acetylcholine
keywords: acetylcholine; attention; medial prefrontal cortex; neurophysiology; nicotinic receptors