Topic: cortical state

During arousal, attention, and memory formation, functionally relevant areas of the neocortex enter an “activated” state marked by desynchronized activity. Previous pharmacological experiments have shown that acetylcholine plays a fundamental role in cortical activation via muscarinic receptors. However, muscarinic receptors have diverse and sometimes contradictory effects in different cell types and cortical layers, and as a result the mechanism(s) of this activating influence remain unclear. Computational models have predicted that increasing excitatory neuron excitability (an M1-type muscar