Frontiers | Cholinergic modulation of cognitive processing: insights drawn from computational models | Frontiers in Behavioral Neuroscience

Frontiers | Cholinergic modulation of cognitive processing: insights drawn from computational models | Frontiers in Behavioral Neuroscience

Here is my newest paper.

In this review of cholinergic function we focus on the contributions that computational models have made to our understanding of the functional influences of acetylcholine.  I'm excited about it because it helps to illustrate how useful simulations of the physiological properties of neural networks can be helping to build our 'big picture' understandings.  At the highest level, our point is that such models serve to focus new research on the physiological mechanisms so as to most directly link them to the functional propoerties they have for psychology or systems neuroscience.  As I hope we've illustrated in this review, this has been particularly fruitful in the case of acetylcholine because of the multitude of effects cholinergic modulation has on neural network dynamics, many of which are seemingly contradictory in nature (simultaneously potentiating some synapses while depressing others).  As a reward, such modeling has shown, for example, that acetylcholine likely plays a central role in sculpting the focus of neural information processing and facilitating the encoding of novel associations.

I hope you enjoy and find it useful for i) understanding the role of modeling in holistic thinking; ii) understanding the potential roles of acetylcholine in cognitive processing; and iii) gaining insights into valuable next steps for empirical and computational explorations.