Dissociation of nicotinic α7 and α4/β2 sub-receptor agonists for enhancing learning and attentional filtering in nonhuman primates

Nicotinic acetylcholine receptors (nAChRs) modulate attention, memory, and higher executive functioning, but it is unclear how nACh sub-receptors mediate different mechanisms supporting these functions.We investigated whether selective agonists for the alpha-7 nAChR versus the alpha-4/beta-2 nAChR have unique functional contributions for value learning and attentional filtering of distractors in the nonhuman primate.Two adult rhesus macaque...