Muscarinic Receptors in Perirhinal Cortex Control Trace Conditioning

Trace conditioning requires that a transient representation of the conditional stimulus ( CS) persists during the time interval between the CS offset and the onset of the unconditional stimulus. According to one hypothesis, this transient CS representation is supported by endogenous activity in "persistent-firing" neurons of perirhinal cortex ( PR). By definition, persistent-firing neurons discharge for tens of seconds or minutes after the termination of the original spike-initiating stimulus. This continued spiking does not depend on recurrent circuit activity and can be reliably and completely blocked by muscarinic receptor antagonists. The present study evaluated the role of PR muscarinic receptors in trace fear conditioning. Before conditioning, rats received bilateral intra-PR infusions with either saline or scopolamine, a nonselective muscarinic receptor antagonist. Scopolamine infusions profoundly impaired trace conditioning but had no effect on delay conditioning or context conditioning. The results encourage a more general understanding of muscarinic receptors in PR and they motivate additional tests of the emerging theory that persistent-firing neurons support aspects of transient memory.