title: Anterior cingulate cortex inactivation impairs rodent visual selective attention and prospective memory.
abstract: Previous studies showed that the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) plays a role in selective visual attention. The current study further examined the role of the ACC in attention using a visual cuing task with task-relevant and task-irrelevant stimuli. On every trial, 2 stimuli were presented on the touchscreen; 1 was task-relevant and the other was task-irrelevant. Rats were trained to attend to the task-relevant stimulus over the task-irrelevant stimulus to determine which side of the touchscreen should be selected for reward. After the rats were well-trained, cannulas targeting the ACC were implanted bilaterally for infusions of PBS or muscimol. When the ACC was functionally intact, high task performance was correlated with the anticipatory touches toward the reward; rats touched the stimulus proximal to the correct side more often, regardless of its task-relevancy. Analysis of the presurgery training data showed that rats developed anticipatory touches during training. Linear discriminant analyses of the touches also showed that the touches predict rats' choices in trials. With muscimol infusions, choice accuracy was impaired and the anticipatory touches toward the correct response location were less frequent. A control experiment, in which there were no irrelevant stimuli, showed no effects of ACC inactivation on choice accuracy or anticipatory touches. These results indicate that the rat ACC plays a critical role in reducing distraction from irrelevant stimuli as well as in guiding attention toward the goal locations.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, University of Iowa.
authors.forename: Jangjin
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Kim
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, University of Iowa.
authors.forename: Edward A
authors.initials: EA
authors.lastname: Wasserman
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, University of Iowa.
authors.forename: Leyre
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Castro
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, University of Iowa.
authors.forename: John H
authors.initials: JH
authors.lastname: Freeman
mesh_terms: D000704:Analysis of Variance; D000818:Animals; D001289:Attention Deficit Disorder with Hyperactivity / Q000209:etiology*; D003463:Cues; D007839:Functional Laterality; D058785:GABA-A Receptor Agonists / Q000494:pharmacology; D006179:Gyrus Cinguli / Q000187:drug effects / Q000502:physiology*; D008297:Male; D008569:Memory Disorders / Q000209:etiology*; D061212:Memory, Episodic; D009118:Muscimol / Q000494:pharmacology; D010775:Photic Stimulation; D051381:Rats; D020318:Rats, Long-Evans; D011930:Reaction Time / Q000187:drug effects; D012201:Reward; D014110:Touch
chemical_list: D058785:GABA-A Receptor Agonists; D009118:Muscimol