Cholinergic contributions to attention and learning: a cross-species approach

心理学和神经科学中剩下的一个基本问题是，我们的知识如何塑造知觉。也就是说，相信和看到之间的关系。理论模型认为，知识驱动和感觉驱动的加工直接受到神经化学物质乙酰胆碱(ACh)提供的关于感觉环境的预测性信息的程度的影响。具体地说，他们提出，在可预测性较低的情况下，ACH促进感觉驱动的处理，而在高度可预测的情况下，知识驱动的处理就足够了。因此，当对一个人的感觉环境的可靠性感到怀疑时，ACh可能会将注意力偏向于促进感觉驱动的皮质处理，这可能会超过知识驱动的额顶皮质网络的影响。通过使用胆碱能免疫毒性损毁技术选择性地将ACh从大鼠皮质中移除，以及在使用功能磁共振成像(FMRI)技术对大鼠进行扫描时在人脑中阻断ACh，我们将检查ACh的减少是否会加剧我们对知识驱动的知觉推理的依赖，从而使大鼠和人类参与者更有可能看到他们相信的东西？我们期望这些研究将对注意力和学习如何与知觉的早期阶段相互作用产生重要的见解。

One of the remaining fundamental questions in psychology and neuroscience is how our knowledge can shape perception. That is, the relationship between believing and seeing. Theoretical models propose that knowledge-driven and sensory-driven processing are directly influenced by the degree of predictive information available about one's sensory environment via the neurochemical acetylcholine (ACh). Specifically, they propose that in cases of an low predictability ACh promotes sensory-driven processing and in cases of highly predictability knowledge-driven processing is sufficient. Thus, when in doubt about the reliability of one's sensory environment, ACh may bias attention to promote sensory-driven cortical processing, which may override the influence of the knowledge-driven frontoparietal cortical network. Through selective removal of ACh from the rat cortex with a cholinergic immunotoxic lesion technique as well as blockade of ACh in the human brain while they are being scanned with the functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) technique, we will examine whether reduced ACh will exacerbate our reliance on knowledge-driven perceptual inference so that the rat and human participants will be more likely to see what they believe? We expect that these studies will yield critical insights as to how attention and learning interface with early stages of perception.