Pharmacological Mechanisms of Cortical Enhancement Induced by the Repetitive Pairing of Visual/Cholinergic Stimulation
Fig 1
Design of the experimental procedure.
A) Timeline of the different experimental steps. The pre-training visual cortical responses to visual stimulation were recorded 4 days (d5) after the implantation of the electrodes and guide cannulas. Visual training was provided for 10 min/day for 7 days (d7-d14) and followed by the recording of the post-training VEPs (d16) (see text for details). B) Schematic diagram illustrating the chronic implantation of the recording electrode and the push-pull guide cannula in V1. The stimulating electrode was implanted in the HDB. C) Schematic representation of the areas of pharmacological agent injection and electrophysiological recording. D) Representative VEP signal traces in response to a 0.12 CPD grating for the sham, pre- and post-training VS/HDB groups. The VEP was evoked by phase inversion after 2 seconds of stimulus presentation (0.25 Hz), and the amplitude was measured by subtracting the negative peak (a or a’) from the positive peak (b or b’). Note that the visual cortical response increased after the VS/HDB training (b’-a’) compared to sham (b-a).