Medicine and Health Sciences Commons^™

Forebrain Deletion Of The Vesicular Acetylcholine Transporter Results In Deficits In Executive Function, Metabolic, And Rna Splicing Abnormalities In The Prefrontal Cortex, Benjamin Kolisnyk, Mohammed A. Al-Onaizi, Pedro H. F. Hirata, Monica S. Guzman, Simona Nikolova, Shahar Barbash, Hermona Soreq, Robert Bartha, Marco A. M. Prado, Vania F. Prado

Anatomy and Cell Biology Publications

One of the key brain regions in cognitive processing and executive function is the prefrontal cortex (PFC), which receives cholinergic input from basal forebrain cholinergic neurons. We evaluated the contribution of synaptically released acetylcholine (ACh) to executive function by genetically targeting the vesicular acetylcholine transporter (VAChT) in the mouse forebrain. Executive function was assessed using a pairwise visual discrimination paradigm and the 5-choice serial reaction time task (5-CSRT). In the pairwise test, VAChT-deficient mice were able to learn, but were impaired in reversal learning, suggesting that these mice present cognitive inflexibility. Interestingly, VAChT-targeted mice took longer to reach criteria in …