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A wide body of preclinical and clinical data suggests that alpha 7 nicotinic acetylcholine receptors (α7-nAChRs) may represent useful targets for cognitive improvement in schizophrenia and Alzheimer׳s disease. A promising recent approach is based on the use of positive allosteric modulators (PAMs) of α7-nAChRs due to their several advantages over the direct agonists. Nevertheless, the behavioural effects of this class of compounds, particularly with regard to higher-order cognitive functions, have not been broadly characterised. The aim of the present study was to evaluate the procognitive efficacies of type I and type II α7-nAChRs PAMs, N-(4-chlorophenyl)-[[(4-chlorophenyl)amino]methylene]-3-methyl-5-isoxazoleacet-amide (CCMI) and N-(5-Chloro-2,4-dimethoxyphenyl)-N'-(5-methyl-3-isoxazolyl)urea (PNU-120596) in the novel object recognition task (NORT), attentional set-shifting task (ASST) and five-choice serial reaction time task (5-CSRTT) in rats. Additionally, the effects of galantamine, an acetylcholinesterase inhibitor that also allosterically modulates nAChRs, were assessed. We report that CCMI (0.3-3mg/kg), PNU-120596 (0.3-3mg/kg) and galantamine (1-3mg/kg) attenuated the delay-induced impairment in NORT performance and facilitated cognitive flexibility in the ASST. Methyllycaconitine (3mg/kg) blocked the actions of CCMI, PNU-120596 and galantamine in the NORT and ASST, suggesting that the procognitive effects of these compounds are α7-nAChRs-dependent. However, none of the compounds tested affected the rats' attentional performance in the 5-CSRTT. The present findings confirm and extend the observations indicating that the positive allosteric modulation of α7-nAChRs enhances recognition memory and cognitive flexibility in preclinical tasks. Therefore, the present study supports the utility of α7-nAChRs PAMs as a potential cognitive enhancing therapy.

Depressive disorder is associated with problems of coping with life's difficulties, including episodes of frustration and disappointment, operationally defined as an unexpected reinforcer omission or a reduction of reinforcer magnitude. In a novel model aimed at detecting potential antidepressants, rats were trained in the operant task under progressive ratio schedule of reinforcement with the break point (BP, the value of the last completed response ratio) as a behavioral endpoint. In the main experiment, a 32% sucrose solution was initially used as the reinforcer. Once the stable responding was achieved, for the following 5 days animals were treated once daily with the experimental drugs, and were offered a 4% sucrose solution instead. In vehicle-treated controls, the reduction of sucrose concentration resulted in a decrease in responding from a BP of about 40 (totaling 166 responses) to a BP of about 9 (totaling 22 responses). Chlordiazepoxide (4 and 8 mg/kg), fluoxetine (3 mg/kg), citalopram (6 mg/kg) and cocaine (2.5 and 5 mg/kg) markedly inhibited this response decrement, while fluoxetine (6 mg/kg) augmented it. Neither desipramine (1–6 mg/kg) nor morphine (1–5 mg/kg) affected responding under the reduced sucrose concentration condition. In the control experiment, the rats have never been offered 32% sucrose solution but their responding was always maintained by 4% sucrose. Under these unchanged conditions, only cocaine (5 mg/kg) affected (increased) responding. The present results suggest that the antidepressants selectively inhibiting serotonin reuptake and a benzodiazepine anxiolytic but not psychostimulant cocaine may specifically protect animals from the effects of a reinforcer downshift.