Cell-type-specific modulation of targets and distractors by dopamine D1 receptors in primate prefrontal cortex.
basic_science · Level V
Where this comes from
- Record sourced from PubMed, PMID 27807366.
- Also identified by DOI 10.1038/ncomms13218 and PMC identifier 5095292.
- Licence recorded as CC BY.
- The licence permits redistribution, so the abstract is shown in full and the full text is available from the publisher.
Abstract
The prefrontal cortex (PFC) is crucial for maintaining relevant information in working memory and resisting interference. PFC neurons are strongly regulated by dopamine, but it is unknown whether dopamine receptors are involved in protecting target memories from distracting stimuli. We investigated the prefrontal circuit dynamics and dopaminergic modulation of targets and distractors in monkeys trained to ignore interfering stimuli in a delayed-match-to-numerosity task. We found that dopamine D1 receptors (D1Rs) modulate the recovery of task-relevant information following a distracting stimulus. The direction of modulation is cell-type-specific: in putative pyramidal neurons, D1R inhibition enhances and D1R stimulation attenuates coding of the target stimulus after the interference, while the opposite pattern is observed in putative interneurons. Our results suggest that dopaminergic neuromodulation of PFC circuits regulates mental representations of behaviourally relevant stimuli that compete with task-irrelevant input and could play a central role for cognitive functioning in health and disease.
Medical subject headings
- Mental Recall
- Prefrontal Cortex
- Receptors, Dopamine D1