Open AccessMethylphenidate as a causal test of translational and basic neural coding hypotheses
Author(s) -
Amy M. Ni,
Brittany Bowes,
Douglas A. Ruff,
Marlene R. Cohen
Publication year - 2022
Publication title -
proceedings of the national academy of sciences of the united states of america
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 5.011
H-Index - 771
eISSN - 1091-6490
pISSN - 0027-8424
DOI - 10.1073/pnas.2120529119
Subject(s) - methylphenidate , neuroscience , attention deficit hyperactivity disorder , cognition , receptive field , psychology , population , coding (social sciences) , medicine , psychiatry , statistics , mathematics , environmental health
Significance Stimulants such as methylphenidate (Ritalin) are often used clinically to treat attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and generally to improve selective attention. Their systemic administration provides a causal manipulation of the attentional system, allowing measurements of the neuronal population changes that accompany artificially manipulated selective attention. We found that orally administering methylphenidate to rhesus monkeys selectively improved visual performance at only their attended spatial location, and that correspondingly specific changes in the shared variability of groups of neurons in visual area V4 occurred only when attention was directed toward the receptive fields of those neurons. Critically, methylphenidate changed behavior exactly when it changed the shared variability of the neuronal responses, suggesting that it may work through naturally selective cognitive mechanisms.