FOS EXPRESSION IN THE BRAINS OF RATS PERFORMING AN ATTENTIONAL SET-SHIFTING TASK

Impairments in executive function and cognitive control are a common feature of neuropsychiatric and neurodegenerative disorders A promising behavioral paradigm for elucidating the neural mechanisms of executive function is extradimensional/intradimensional (ED/ID) shifting, which places demands on executive function by requiring the adjustment of behavioral responses based on affective or attentional information To augment the understanding of the brain systems required for these aspects of executive function, we examined the induction of Fos protein in rats tested in the ED/ID paradigm We found increased Fos-like immuno reactivity (Fos LI) in several cortical areas, including medial and orbital frontal cortex (OFC), in rats performing affective or attentional shifts relative to rats performing control discriminations However, increased Fos LI was also present in rats that performed a yoked number of additional control discrimination trials, without affective or attentional shifting These observations suggest that cortical networks required for affective and attentional shifting are also activated during comparable discrimination tasks that do not require shifting, consistent with a role for these networks in monitoring on going behavior even in situations in which adaptation to changing behavioral demands is not required (C) 2010 IBRO Published by Elsevier Ltd All rights reserved