The mesencephalic centre controlling locomotion in the rat.
A mesencephalic locomotor region has been located in the rat brain. Electrical stimulation of the mid-brain in decerebrate animals was used to elicit locomotion on a freely mobile treadwheel. The lowest threshold stimulation sites were reconstructed from histology and accumulated from different experiments. An averaging procedure, taking into account the threshold stimulus current used in each experiment, was used to identify the brain region in which neurons would have been activated in most experiments. The mesencephalic locomotor region so defined corresponds closely to nucleus cuneiformis and the immediately surrounding pedunculopontine region.
Department of Zoology, University of Oxford, U.K.
S K
SK
Coles
J F
JF
Iles
S
S
Nicolopoulos-Stournaras
D000818:Animals; D001931:Brain Mapping; D004056:Differential Threshold; D004558:Electric Stimulation / Q000379:methods; D008124:Locomotion; D008636:Mesencephalon / Q000502:physiology*; D051381:Rats; D013997:Time Factors