The pedunculopontine tegmental nucleus and the nucleus basalis magnocellularis: do both have a role in sustained attention?

ABSTRACT:

Background

It is well established that nucleus basalis magnocellularis (NbM) lesions impair performance on tests of sustained attention. Previous work from this laboratory has also demonstrated that pedunculopontine tegmental nucleus (PPTg) lesioned rats make more omissions on a test of sustained attention, suggesting that it might also play a role in mediating this function. However, the results of the PPTg study were open to alternative interpretation. We aimed to resolve this by conducting a detailed analysis of the effects of damage to each brain region in the same sustained attention task used in our previous work. Rats were trained in the task before surgery and post-surgical testing examined performance in response to unpredictable light signals of 1500 ms and 4000 ms durati

SUBMITTER: Rostron CL 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC2257968 | biostudies-literature | 2008 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature