Contribution of the cholinergic basal forebrain to proactive interference from stored odor memories during associative learning in rats

E. De Rosa and M. E. Hasselmo (2000) demonstrated that 0.25 mg/kg scopolamine (SCOP) selectively increased proactive interference (PI) from stored odor memories during learning. In the present study. rats with bilateral cholinergic lesions limited to the horizontal limb of the diagonal band of Broca. made with 192 IgG-saporin, were not impaired in acquiring the same olfactory discrimination task relative to control rats. Rats with bilateral 192 IgG-saporin lesions to all basal forebrain cholinergic nuclei (BF) also showed no impairment in acquisition of this task. However. the BF-saporin rats were hypersensitive to oxotremorine-induced hypothermia and demonstrated an increased sensitivity to PI following a low dose of SCOP (0.125 mg/kg) relative to control rats. The results suggest that weaker cholinergic modulation after cholinergic BF lesions makes the system more sensitive to PI during blockade of the remaining cholinergic elements.