抄録
The cholinergic pedunculopontine tegmental nucleus (PPTN) in the brainstem is thought to associated with reward-related behaviors by integrating polymodal signals related to the motivational state of animal, sensory information, motor control and reward. Here, we examined the effect of behavioral and reward context on neuronal activity of the pedunculopontine tegmental nucleus (PPTN) in primates during visually guided saccade tasks. About half of movement-related activities occurred for only the saccades to the saccade target in the task, but they did not occur for the saccades outside the task. On the other hand, for the other half of neurons, movement-related activities occurred for every saccade regardless of the task condition. For visual responses, some neurons responded either the initial fixation point or saccade target, and others responded equally to both stimuli. We further analyzed mutual relationship among modulation timing, preferred direction, effect of reward expectation and this context dependency of the activities, and discussed the visuo-motor processing of PPTN. [J Physiol Sci. 2007;57 Suppl:S161]
