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Neural Circuitry Of The Midbrain Pedunculopontine Tegmental Nucleus Regarding Its Role In Sensorimotor Gating, Niveen Fulcher

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

The brain is a complicated structure that receives copious amounts of information at any given time. The pedunculopontine tegmental nucleus (PPTg) is involved in many innate functions like arousal, rapid eye-movement (REM) sleep, reward association and sensorimotor gating. Although commonly referred to as a cholinergic structure, it also contains glutamatergic and GABAergic neurons. Based on chronic PPTg lesions that disrupted PPI, cholinergic PPTg neurons were long assumed to mediate prepulse inhibition (PPI) of startle, a measure of sensorimotor gating. Deficits of PPI are observed in a variety of neurological disorders, including Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD), Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD), and is …