Journal
BEHAVIORAL NEUROSCIENCE
Volume 118, Issue 1, Pages 79-88Publisher
AMER PSYCHOLOGICAL ASSOC
DOI: 10.1037/0735-7044.118.1.79
Keywords
-
Categories
Funding
- NIMH NIH HHS [MH63343] Funding Source: Medline
Ask authors/readers for more resources
Vagal nerve stimulation (VNS) is known to improve cognitive processing, presumably by affecting activity in central nervous system structures that process recently acquired information. It has long been assumed that these effects are related to stimulation-induced increases of norepinephrine (NE) release in limbic brain structures. The present study examined this hypothesis by administering VNS at an intensity and duration that improves memory and then measuring fluctuations in NE output in the basolateral amygdala (BLA) with in vivo microdialysis. In Experiment 1, VNS caused a 98% increase in NE output relative to baseline. In Experiment 2, methyl atropine was given 10 min before VNS to assess whether stimulation-induced increases in amygdala NE are mediated by afferent or efferent vagal branches. Methyl atropine did not alter NE release in the BLA in comparison with saline. The significance of these findings in understanding how peripheral neural activity modulates limbic structures to encode and store new information into memory is discussed.
Authors
I am an author on this paper
Click your name to claim this paper and add it to your profile.
Reviews
Recommended
No Data Available