Locus coeruleus norepinephrine selectively controls visual attention

Norepinephrine (NE) neuromodulation plays a role in diverse non-specific physiological and cognitive functions including wakefulness, arousal, and cognitive performance. NE modulation of neuronal responses in the cerebral cortex has been proposed to mediate improved task-specific behavior by enhancing sensory processing. However, the sensory-specific NE contribution on performance remains unknown. We directly tested the role of NE-mediated neuromodulation of sensory signals on perceptual performance in non-human primates doing visual spatial attention tasks. We found that NE neurons in the locus coeruleus (LC) respond selectively to an attended stimulus. Optogenetically enhancing the sensory-specific responses of LC-NE neurons improved the monkeys’ sensory discrimination in a spatially selectively way, without affecting motor processing. These findings identify a specific contribution of NE neuromodulation of sensory representations to selective attention and performance.One-Sentence SummaryOptogenetic activation of monkey locus coeruleus causes a strong and spatially selective improvement in visual sensitivity.Graphical abstractElevation of phasic norepinephrine signal by optogenetic stimulation of locus coeruleus in non-human primates selectively improves attentional performance that attributes to enhanced sensory sensitivity.