The effect of ibotonic acid lesion of the nucleus basalis of Meynert (NBM) on the response of cortical neurons in the rat barrel cortex

Abstract

In the present study, the effect of NBM lesion on the temporal characteristics of response integration evoked by multiple whisker stimulations in the barrel cortex of rats was studied. Nucleus basalis of Meynert (NBM) projects to widespread areas of the cortex and provides the major cholinergic input (80%) to the cerebral cortex. In this study we examined the effects of NBM lesion on the responses properties of rat barrel cortical cells male Wistar rats weighing 250-350 g were used. The animals were randomly distributed into two groups: One group received bilateral NBM lesions (5 ?g ibotonic/5ul phosphate-buffered saline solution); rats in the other group were sham-operated. Extracellular single-unit recording and controlled whisker stimuli were used to compare response properties of cells in barrel cortex between the two groups. Two neighboring principal and adjacent whiskers in the same row were deflected alone with varying inter-stimulus intervals. Result showed that response magnitude was significantly lower in NBM-lesioned rats as compared to the sham group (P