乙酰胆碱：视觉注意力的生物学基础

Naturally occurring brain chemical acetylcholine enhances visual processing’‘
天然存在于脑的乙酰胆碱能增加视力

Neuroscientists at New York University have found that a naturally occurring chemical in the brain can enhance visual processing and suggest that this chemical may represent part of the biological basis of visual attention.

纽约大学的神经科学家在脑中本来就存在的化学物质乙酰胆碱可以增加视力加工的过程并提出这个化学物质可能部分反映了视觉注意力的生物学基础。
While the chemical, acetylcholine (ACh), had been known to increase the activity of individual neurons, it had not previously been shown that this activity enhancement leads to enhanced vision. The findings appear in the latest issue of the journal Neuron.

尽管乙酰胆碱这个化学物质早就被发现可以增加神经元的兴奋性，但是目前为止没有现实对于神经元兴奋性的增加，可以增加视力。这个发现最近出现在《神经元）这本杂志上。

The study's lead author, Anita Disney, is a post-doctoral fellow at NYU's Center for Neural Science (CNS). The work's other authors are Chiye Aoki and Michael J. Hawken, both faculty members at CNS.
Anita Disney，这个研究的首席研究者，目前是纽约大学神经科学中心（CNS)的博士后。这个研究的其他成员，Chiye Aoki以及Michael J. Hawken也是CNS的研究员。

To examine the effect of ACh, the researchers looked at the brain's nicotinic acetylcholine receptors (nAChR), to which ACh binds to stimulate neural activity. Nicotinic receptors are named for the fact that they also bind nicotine-the addictive chemical in cigarettes. ACh is a neurotransmitter-a chemical used to relay, amplify, and modulate signals between neurons and between neurons and other cells. Previous scholarship had shown that ACh enhances attention, in rodents, but the precise mechanisms behind these enhancements are not understood.
为了研究乙酰胆碱的作用，研究者们研究了大脑了的烟碱乙酰胆碱受体，烟碱乙酰胆碱受体是乙酰胆碱的结合部位，并刺激神经活动。烟碱乙酰胆碱受体因为它也和吸烟者中能引起上瘾的烟碱的结合而得名。乙酰胆碱是一种化学的神经递质，可以延缓，放大，调节神经元之间，神经元和其他细胞之间的信号传导。之前已有学者证实乙酰胆碱可以增加兔子的注意力，但是这个增强作用的确切机制目前并不明确。

In this study, the researchers found that information that comes into the brain's visual cortex can be selectively enhanced by mimicking the effects of ACh with nicotine, resulting in the ability of neurons to detect, and to signal, stimuli that, without ACh's enhancement, were below detection threshold.
在这个研究中，研究者们发现来自于视皮质的信号可以被乙酰胆碱和烟碱的作用选择性的增强，导致神经元的活性被能被探测到，传导，刺激。没有乙酰胆碱的增强作用，后面的信号不能被探及。

\"That's what attention does--it strengthens the signal you're interested in and that strengthening helps you filter out other things\" said Disney \"Our findings show that acetylcholine has the ability to turn up the volume on visual activity, just like attention does.\"
“这个就是注意力所作的事情－能够加强你感兴趣的信号并且帮助你过滤掉其他的东西。”Disney说“我们的研究显示乙酰胆碱增加视敏度的能力，就像注意力所作的一样。”

Disney added that the study sheds additional light on the function of our cholinergic system-a system of nerve cells dependent on ACh as their neurotransmitters. In 's patients, the cells in the cholinergic system have been damaged
Disney补充说“这个研究发现了依赖于作为神经递质的乙酰胆碱的神经细胞胆碱能系统另外的一个方面。在Alzheimer患者中，细胞中的胆碱能系统视被破坏的。