Role of the pedunculopontine nucleus in controlling gait and sleep in normal and parkinsonian monkeys.

Abstract

Patients with Parkinson's disease (PD) develop cardinal motor symptoms, including akinesia, rigidity, and tremor, that are alleviated by dopaminergic medication and/or subthalamic deep brain stimulation. Over the time course of the disease, gait and balance disorders worsen and become resistant to pharmacological and surgical treatments. These disorders generate debilitating motor symptoms leading to increased dependency, morbidity, and mortality. PD patients also experience sleep disturbance that raise the question of a common physiological basis. An extensive experimental and clinical body of work has highlighted the crucial role of the pedunculopontine nucleus (PPN) in the control of gait and sleep, and its potential major role in PD. Here, we summarise our investigations in the monkey PPN in the normal and parkinsonian states. We first examined the anatomy and connectivity of the PPN and the cuneiform nucleus which both belong to the mesencephalic locomotor region. Second, we conducted experiments to demonstrate the specific effects of PPN cholinergic lesions on locomotion in the normal and parkinsonian monkey. Third, we aimed to understand how PPN cholinergic lesions impair sleep in parkinsonian monkeys. Our final goal was to develop a novel model of advanced PD with gait and sleep disorders. We believe that this monkey model, even if it does not attempt to reproduce the exact human disease with all its complexities, represents a good biomedical model to characterise locomotion and sleep in the context of PD.