Electronically induced contrast enhancement in whisker S1 cortical response fields

The ability of an organism to specifically attend to relevant sensory information during learning and subsequent performance of a task is highly dependent on the release of the neurotransmitter Acetylcholine (ACh). Electrophysiological studies have shown that pairing endogenous ACh with specific visual or auditory stimuli induces long lasting enhancements of subsequent cortical responses to the previously paired stimulus. In this study we present data suggesting that similar effects can be elicited in the rat whisker sensory system. Specifically, we show that pairing whisker deflection with electrical stimulation of the magnocellular basal nucleus (BN: a natural source of cortical ACh) causes an increase in the center-surround contrast of the treated whisker's cortical response field (CRF). Meanwhile, deflections of whiskers distant from the treated whisker show overall increased response magnitudes, but non-significant changes in contrast between principle vs. surround barrel responses. Control trials, in which BN stimulation was not paired with whisker deflection, showed similar lack of contrast enhancement. These results indicate that BN stimulation, paired with incoming whisker information, selectively increases the paired whisker's CRF center-surround contrast, while unpaired BN stimulation causes a more general increases in S1 responsiveness, without contrast modulation. Enhanced control over whisker sensory pathway attentional mechanisms has the potential to facilitate a more effective transfer of desired information to the animal's neural processing circuitry, thereby allowing experimental evaluation of more complex behavior and cognition than was previously possible.