Kelly Runyon
Tung Bui
Sarah Mazanek
Alec Hartle
William M. Howe
*The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.
REVIEW article
Front. Mol. Neurosci.
Sec. Molecular Signalling and Pathways
Volume 17 - 2024 |
doi: 10.3389/fnmol.2024.1429316
This article is part of the Research Topic Mechanisms of Cholinergic Transmission in Motivation and Cognition View all articles
Distinct cholinergic circuits underlie discrete effects of reward on attention
Provisionally accepted- School of Neuroscience, College of Science, Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, United States
Attention and reward are functions that are critical for the control of behavior, and massive multi-region neural systems have evolved to support the discrete computations associated with each. Previous research has also identified that attention and reward interact, though our understanding of the neural mechanisms that mediate this interplay is incomplete. Here, we review the basic neuroanatomy of attention, reward, and cholinergic systems. We then examine specific contexts in which attention and reward computations interact. Building on this work, we propose two discrete neural circuits whereby acetylcholine, released from cell groups located in different parts of the brain, mediates the impact of stimulus-reward associations as well as motivation on attentional control. We conclude by examining these circuits as a potential shared loci of dysfunction across diseases states associated with deficits in attention and reward.
Keywords: Acetylcholine, Attention, Reward, Striatum, midbrain, Dopamine, frontal cortex
Received: 07 May 2024; Accepted: 01 Aug 2024.
Copyright: © 2024 Runyon, Bui, Mazanek, Hartle, Marschalko and Howe. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence:
William M. Howe, School of Neuroscience, College of Science, Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, United States
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