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Updated: Feb 12, 2026

Local Application of Drugs to Study Nicotinic Acetylcholine Receptor Function in Mouse Brain Slices
Published on: October 29, 2012
Nicotinic Acetylcholine Receptors Control Encoding and Retrieval of Associative Recognition Memory through Plasticity
Marie H Sabec1, Susan Wonnacott2, E Clea Warburton1
1School of Physiology, Pharmacology and Neuroscience, University of Bristol, Bristol BS8 1TD, UK.
Abstract:
Nicotinic acetylcholine receptors (nAChRs) expressed in the medial prefrontal cortex have critical roles in cognitive function. However, whether nAChRs are required for associative recognition memory and the mechanisms by which nAChRs may contribute to mnemonic processing are not known. We demonstrate that nAChRs in the prefrontal cortex exhibit subtype-specific roles in associative memory encoding and retrieval. We present evidence that these separate roles of nAChRs may rely on bidirectional modulation of plasticity at synaptic inputs to the prefrontal cortex that are essential for associative recognition memory.
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