HOME HELP FEEDBACK SUBSCRIPTIONS ARCHIVE SEARCH TABLE OF CONTENTS		QUICK SEARCH:   [advanced] Author: Keyword(s): Year:  Vol:  Page:

This Article Full Text Full Text (PDF) All Versions of this Article: 92/3/1445    most recent 00079.2004v1 Alert me when this article is cited Alert me if a correction is posted Citation Map Services Email this article to a friend Similar articles in this journal Similar articles in ISI Web of Science Similar articles in PubMed Alert me to new issues of the journal Download to citation manager Citing Articles Citing Articles via HighWire Citing Articles via ISI Web of Science (10) Citing Articles via Google Scholar Google Scholar Articles by Manunta, Y. Articles by Edeline, J.-M. Search for Related Content PubMed PubMed Citation Articles by Manunta, Y. Articles by Edeline, J.-M.

Noradrenergic Induction of Selective Plasticity in the Frequency Tuning of Auditory Cortex Neurons

Laboratoire de Neurobiologie de l'Apprentissage, de la Mémoire et de la Communication, Unité Mixte de Recherche 8620, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, 91405 Orsay, France

Submitted 26 January 2004; accepted in final form 9 April 2004

Neuromodulators have long been viewed as permissive factors in experience-induced cortical plasticity, both during development and in adulthood. Experiments performed over the last two decades have reported the potency of acetylcholine to promote changes in functional properties of cortical cells in the auditory, visual, and somatosensory modality. In contrast, very few attempts were made with the monoaminergic systems. The present study evaluates how repeated presentation of brief pulses of noradrenaline (NA) concomitant with presentation of a particular tone frequency changes the frequency tuning curves of auditory cortex neurons determined at 20 dB above threshold. After 100 trials of NA-tone pairing, 28% of the cells (19/67) exhibited selective tuning modifications for the frequency paired with NA. All the selective effects were obtained when the paired frequency was within 1/4 of an octave from the initial best frequency. For these cells, selective decreases were prominent (15/19 cases), and these effects lasted 15 min after pairing. No selective effects were observed under various control conditions: tone alone (n = 10 cells), NA alone (n = 11 cells), pairing with ascorbic acid (n = 6 cells), or with GABA (n = 20 cells). Selective effects were observed when the NA-tone pairing was performed in the presence of propranolol (4/10 cells) but not when it was performed in the presence phentolamine (0/13 cells), suggesting that the effects were mediated by alpha receptors. These results indicate that brief increases in noradrenaline concentration can trigger selective modifications in the tuning curves of cortical neurons that, in most of the cases, go in opposite direction compared with those usually reported with acetylcholine.

This article has been cited by other articles:

				J. B. Fritz, M. Elhilali, and S. A. Shamma Adaptive Changes in Cortical Receptive Fields Induced by Attention to Complex Sounds J Neurophysiol, October 1, 2007; 98(4): 2337 - 2346. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]

				G. Soto, N. Kopell, and K. Sen Network Architecture, Receptive Fields, and Neuromodulation: Computational and Functional Implications of Cholinergic Modulation in Primary Auditory Cortex J Neurophysiol, December 1, 2006; 96(6): 2972 - 2983. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]

				S.-Y. Choi, J. Chang, B. Jiang, G.-H. Seol, S.-S. Min, J.-S. Han, H.-S. Shin, M. Gallagher, and A. Kirkwood Multiple Receptors Coupled to Phospholipase C Gate Long-Term Depression in Visual Cortex J. Neurosci., December 7, 2005; 25(49): 11433 - 11443. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]