The pharmacology of attention in fronto-parietal sensory information processing (C04)

• Subject Area: Cognitive, Systems and Behavioural Neurobiology ; Human Cognitive and Systems Neuroscience
• Term: from 2011 to 2022
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 154113120

The cholinergic system plays an important role in the attentional enhancement of sensory responses in the visual cortex. Although previous work in macaque V1 has shown a strong contribution of the muscarinic receptor subtype to attentional enhancement of firing rates, our latest results suggest that this is not the case in extrastriate area MT. We now want to use two promising technologies to expand our investigation to include other neurotransmitter systems: microdialysis (with limited time resolution, to screen for the most promising transmitter candidates) and electrochemistry (at 40Hz in combination with electrophysiological recordings), in order to identify the neuropharmacological basis of attention.

• DFG Programme: Collaborative Research Centres
• Subproject of: SFB 889: Cellular Mechanisms of Sensory Processing
• Applicant Institution: Georg-August-Universität Göttingen
• Project Head: Professor Dr. Stefan Treue