Systemic Nicotine Increases Gain and Narrows Receptive Fields in A1 via Integrated Cortical and Subcortical Actions
Open accessAbstract
Nicotine enhances sensory and cognitive processing via actions at nicotinic acetylcholine receptors (nAChRs), yet the precise circuit- and systems-level mechanisms remain unclear. In sensory cortex, nicotinic modulation of receptive fields (RFs) provides a model to probe mechanisms by which nAChRs regulate cortical circuits. Here, we examine RF modulation in mouse primary auditory cortex (A1) using a novel electrophysiological approach: current-source density (CSD) analysis of responses to tone-in-notched-noise (TINN) acoustic stimuli. TINN stimuli consist of a tone at the characteristic frequency (CF) of the recording site embedded within a white noise stimulus filtered to create a spectral “notch” of variable width centered on CF. Systemic nicotine (2.1 mg/kg) enhanced responses to the CF tone and to narrow-notch stimuli, yet reduced the response to wider-notch stimuli, indicating increased response gain within a narrowed RF. Subsequent manipulations showed that modulation of cortical RFs by systemic nicotine reflected effects at several levels in the auditory pathway: nicotine suppressed responses in the auditory midbrain and thalamus, with suppression increasing with spectral distance from CF so that RFs became narrower, and facilitated responses in the thalamocortical pathway, while nicotinic actions within A1 further contributed to both suppression and facilitation. Thus, multiple effects of systemic nicotine integrate along the ascending auditory pathway. These actions at nAChRs in cortical and subcortical circuits, which mimic effects of auditory attention, likely contribute to nicotinic enhancement of sensory and cognitive processing.
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Systemically applied nicotine enhances response gain in mouse A1.
“Similarly, systemically applied nicotine enhances response gain in mouse A1 (REF.173).”
From Mechanisms underlying gain modulation in the cortex (2020) · cites this paper as [173]
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Mechanisms underlying gain modulation in the cortex
Ferguson, K. A., & Cardin, J. A. (2020) · Nature Reviews Neuroscience · doi:10.1038/s41583-019-0253-y · Cited by 327 · see citing works
- Authors
- Askew, C., Intskirveli, I., & Metherate, R.
- Affiliations
- University of California, Irvine (US)
- Corresponding author
- Metherate, Raju
- Venue
- eneuro
- Publisher
- Society for Neuroscience
- Published
- 2017-05
- Volume
- 4
- Issue
- 3
- Pages
- ENEURO.0192-17.2017
- ISSN
- 2373-2822 (ISSN-L)
- PMC
- PMC5480142
- OpenAlex
- W2626371839
- Cited by
- 18
- References
- 71
- Citations by year
- 2026: 2 · 2024: 1 · 2023: 2 · 2022: 2 · 2021: 5 · 2020: 1 · 2019: 3 · 2018: 2
- FWCI
- 0.67
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- gold
- doi.org
- Locations
- eNeuro (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- Europe PMC (PubMed Central) (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- PubMed Central (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- eScholarship (California Digital Library) (submittedVersion)
- Funders
- HHS | NIH | National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders (100000055, R01 DC013200, P30 DC08369, T32 DC010775)
- NSF | EHR | Division of Graduate Education (100000082, DGE-1321846)
- Topics
- Life Sciences › Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology › Molecular Biology › Nicotinic Acetylcholine Receptors Study
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Sensory Systems › Hearing, Cochlea, Tinnitus, Genetics
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Neuroscience and Music Perception
- Keywords
- nicotinic acetylcholine receptors, primary auditory cortex, response gain, current source density, auditory midbrain, thalamus, thalamocortical circuits, ascending auditory pathway, auditory attention, characteristic frequency
- MeSH terms
- Acoustic Stimulation, Analysis of Variance, Animals, Auditory Cortex, Auditory Pathways, Auditory Perception, Evoked Potentials, Auditory, Male, Microinjections, Muscimol, Nicotine, Oxadiazoles, Pyridines, Receptors, Nicotinic, Nicotinic Agonists, Mice, GABA-A Receptor Agonists
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