Exploring the Link between Drug Addiction Propensity and Improper Top- Down Processing via Sustained Attention Tasks

Sustained attention, or the ability to direct and focus cognitive activity on specific stimuli, has been inextricably linked with neuroscience research dealing with disorders ranging from ADHD and Schizophrenia to drug addictions including, but not limited to, alcohol and cocaine. However, until recently, much of this research has been geared towards the behavioral platform of sustained attention. As the propensity to attribute incentive salience to reward cues has been hypothesized to indicate vulnerability to addiction, in this study, the sustained attentional capabilities were investigated in rats showing high propensity in attributing salience to cues classified as “sign-trackers ” (ST), and in their counterpart “goal trackers ” (GT) which did not readily attribute incentive salience to cues during a Pavlovian conditioned approach test. Both groups were trained on Sustained Attention Tasks (SAT). After reaching stable performance on criteria, the effects on SAT performance of systemic injections of mecamylamine a nicotinic receptor antagonist; scopolamine hydrobromide, a muscarinic antagonist; and MK801, an NMDA receptor antagonist were monitored. Though our results have confirmed that the level of performance of ST rats is significantly lower compared to thei