Grant: Project Grant

Our daily tasks regularly involve several cognitive processes. We can attend to our conversation at a noisy cocktail party and retain in memory a telephone number to dial it a few seconds later. These processes of attention and working memory enable flexibility in our behavior. Recent advances suggest that they share some neural circuit and mechanisms. Moreover, their dysfunctions characterize mental disorders, including attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), the most common childhood disorders that can continue through adolescence and into adulthood. In addition, decline in these basic cognitive functions compromises healthy aging and is diagnostic of neurodegenerative diseases, such as Alzheimer and Parkinson's diseases. In this proposal, we aim to gain a comprehensive understanding of the effects of drugs used in mental disorders to modulate cognitive functions. We will investigate the multiple facets of these functions in animals trained to perform a task probing attention and memory. First, we will test whether and how the drugs used in the treatment of ADHD can impair or improve task performance. Second, we will examine the neural mechanisms underlying these performance changes by measuring the impact of these drugs on the activity of neurons. Lastly, we will also assess how motivation can be modulated together with or differentially from cognitive abilities. As a whole, this refined animal model of cognition will provide a solid platform to test new ideas about clinical intervention and thus help understand better the neural mechanisms that are dysfunctional in mental disorders and becoming impaired in aging. Specifically, it will determine whether the interventions for ADHD are effective in treating the cognitive symptoms of this disorder and whether alternatives may offer better therapeutic option.