Phasic locus coeruleus activity regulates cortical encoding of salience information.

ABSTRACT: Phasic activation of locus coeruleus (LC)-norepinephrine (NE) neurons is associated with focused attention and behavioral responses to salient stimuli. We used cell-type-specific optogenetics and single-unit neurophysiology to identify how LC activity influences neural encoding of sensory information. We found that phasic, but not tonic, LC-NE photoactivation generated a distinct event-related potential (ERP) across cortical regions. Salient sensory stimuli (which innately trigger phasic LC activity) produced strong excitatory cortical responses during this ERP window. Application of weaker, nonsalient stimuli produced limited responses, but these responses were elevated to salient stimulus levels when they were temporally locked with phasic LC photoactivation. These results demonstrate th

SUBMITTER: Vazey EM 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6176602 | biostudies-literature | 2018 Oct

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature