McAuley J, Pang K (2007) Effects of NBM lesions on selective attention in an interval timing task. Neuroscience 2007 Abstracts 742.9. Society for Neuroscience, San Diego, CA.
Summary: Divided and sustained attention are impaired by damage to the nucleus basalis magnocellularis (NBM), which provides cholinergic and GABAergic input to the neocortex. The present study was performed to further investigate the role of the NBM in attention using a selective attention version of the peak-interval timing procedure. Male Fisher 344 rats were initially trained using a peak interval procedure to time a light stimulus, delivering reward for the first lever press after 12 s. Selective attention was then tested in distracter sessions where random tone bursts and house light flashes were presented on some trials, but not others. These distracter sessions were interleaved with non-distracter sessions that were identical to initial peak-interval training. Preliminary results in normal young rats show that peak times on un-reinforced probe trials with distraction were lengthened as compared to probe trials without distraction in the same session. Moreover, peak times on non-distracter probe trials were similar between distracter and non-distracter sessions. In these preliminary studies, the observed overestimation of time during selective attention testing was transient, supporting the view that attention modulates the rate of an internal clock. Current studies aim to determine the influence of selective cholinergic or GABAergic NBM lesions in this selective attention task.
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