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Science 22 January 1999:
Vol. 283. no. 5401, pp. 549 - 554
DOI: 10.1126/science.283.5401.549
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Reports

The Role of Locus Coeruleus in the Regulation of Cognitive Performance

Marius Usher, Jonathan D. Cohen, David Servan-Schreiber, Janusz Rajkowski, Gary Aston-Jones *

Noradrenergic locus coeruleus (LC) neurons were recorded in monkeys performing a visual discrimination task, and a computational model was developed addressing the role of the LC brain system in cognitive performance. Changes in spontaneous and stimulus-induced patterns of LC activity correlated closely with fluctuations in behavioral performance. The model explains these fluctuations in terms of changes in electrotonic coupling among LC neurons and predicts improved performance during epochs of high coupling and synchronized LC firing. Cross correlations of simultaneously recorded LC neurons confirmed this prediction, indicating that electrotonic coupling in LC may play an important role in attentional modulation and the regulation of goal-directed versus exploratory behaviors.

M. Usher, Department of Psychology, University of Kent, Canterbury, UK. J. D. Cohen, Department of Psychology, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ 08540, USA and Department of Psychiatry, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA 15213, USA. D. Servan-Schreiber, Department of Psychiatry, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA 15213, USA. J. Rajkowski and G. Aston-Jones, Department of Psychiatry, University of Pennsylvania, VAMC (151), University and Woodland Avenues, Philadelphia, PA 19104, USA.
*   To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: gaj{at}mail.med.upenn.edu

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Science. ISSN 0036-8075 (print), 1095-9203 (online)