The locus coeruleus and cognitive function: Attempts to relate noradrenergic enhancement of signal/noise in the brain to behavior

Behavioral manipulations that alleviate forgetting in a complex maze task are paralleled by pharmacological manipulations which modulate noradrenergic activity. Increased noradrenergic activity is observed following prior exposure to contextual reminder cues. It is proposed that the facilitated retrieval reflects a conditioned arousal and an enhanced attention to discriminative stimuli mediated by the noradrenergic response. Failure to find learning and memory retrieval deficits in rats that are depleted of noradrenaline is discussed in terms of functional recovery after lesions.

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