The role of acetylcholine in the perirhinal cortex

描述（由申请人提供）：神经退行性疾病，如阿尔茨海默病（AD），其特征是严重和衰弱性的记忆丧失。观察到这种和其他记忆障碍涉及颞叶的病理，导致了“内侧颞叶（MTL）记忆系统”的想法，该系统由海马体（HC），鼻周（PRh）和内嗅皮质组成。这些不同的结构似乎执行着独特而又互补的记忆相关功能。由于阿尔茨海默病的退化是进行性的，从鼻皮层开始，后来影响到HC，因此分离MTL结构对记忆功能的具体贡献对于理解阿尔茨海默病引起的记忆缺陷的进展是必要的。因此，目前研究计划的一个主要目标是阐明这些结构如何促进特定的学习和记忆过程。阿尔茨海默病神经生物学的第二个方面受到了相当大的关注，那就是胆碱能系统的退化。在AD中退化的胆碱能神经元投射到上述MTL结构。因此，我提出的研究的第二个目的是研究乙酰胆碱（ACh）在这些区域对记忆的作用。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer's disease (AD) are characterized by a severe and debilitating loss of memory. The observation that this and other disorders of memory involve pathology in the temporal lobe, has led to the idea of a 'Medial Temporal Lobe (MTL) memory system' consisting of the hippocampus (HC), perirhinal (PRh) and entorhinal cortices. These distinct structures appear to perform unique, yet complementary, memory-related functions. As the degeneration of AD is progressive, beginning with the rhinal cortex and later affecting the HC, isolating the specific contributions made by MTL structures to memory functioning is necessary for understanding the progression of memory deficits caused by AD. Thus, a main goal of the present research proposal is to clarify how these structures contribute to specific learning and memory processes. A second aspect of the neurobiology of AD that has received considerable attention is the degeneration of the cholinergic system. The cholinergic neurons that degenerate in AD project to the MTL structures described above. A second aim of my proposed research, therefore, is to investigate the role of acetylcholine (ACh) to memory in these regions.