The Role of the Anterior Cingulate Cortex in Cognitive Flexibility: A Novel Attentional Set Shifting Task

Presenter: Aidan M. Houllahan

Faculty Sponsor: David Moorman

School: UMass Amherst

Research Area: Neuroscience and Cognitive Science

Session: Poster Session 6, 4:15 PM - 5:00 PM, Auditorium, A28

ABSTRACT

Cognitive flexibility is defined as one’s ability to alter behavior in response to changing environmental and situational stimuli. Cognitive flexibility is complex and relies on many cognitive processes, including response inhibition, working memory, and attention. A primary brain region responsible for cognitive flexibility is the prefrontal cortex. One subregion, the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC), has shown to be active during attentional set shifting tasks (ASST), which measure cognitive flexibility. To better understand the ACC’s role in cognitive flexibility, the present study utilized reversible chemogenetic manipulation of ACC during a novel attentional set shifting task (ASST).

Adult male and female C57BI/6J mice received bilateral inhibitory Gi-coupled chemogenetic vector or GFP control into the ACC. Post-surgical mice were then trained on a novel ASST to test cognitive flexibility. The task consisted of multiple rule shifts between different auditory and visual stimuli of increasing difficulty. Once proficient, mice performed a series of testing sessions after receiving either deschloroclozapine (DCZ; 0.1mg/kg) for short-term chemogenetic inhibition of ACC or vehicle (saline) injections. Importantly, our ASST allows for longitudinal tracking of each animal's performance across treatments. On DCZ sessions, ACC inhibited animals were significantly less likely to reach the most difficult rule shift in the ASST. Additionally, if they were able to complete more simple rule shifts, doing so took more trials and they made significantly more errors. These results suggest that the ACC is a critical node in the prefrontal networks that enable cognitive flexibility. 

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