Abstract
Sensorimotor gating – a mechanism to filter sensory input and regulate motor output - is experimentally operationalized by the prepulse inhibition (PPI) of the startle response (SR). Previous studies suggest high test-retest reliability of PPI and potential correlation with working memory (WM). Here we aimed to validate the test-retest reliability of PPI in healthy humans and its correlation with working memory (WM) performance. We applied an acoustic startle PPI paradigm with four different prepulse intensities (64, 68, 72, and 76 dB) and two different WM tasks (n-back, change detection task [CDT]). We were able to confirm high retest-reliability of the PPI with a mean intraclass correlation (ICC) of >0.80 and significant positive correlation of PPI with n-back but not with CDT performance. Detailed analysis showed that PPI across all prepulse intensities significantly correlated with both the 2-back and 0-back conditions, suggesting regulation by cross-conditional processes (e.g. attention). However, when removing the 0-back component from the 2-back data, we found a specific and significant correlation with WM for the 76 dB PPI condition. With the present study we were able to confirm the high test-retest reliability of the PPI in humans and could validate and expand on its correlation with WM performance.
Sensitivity to Sensorimotor Gating-Disruptive Effects of Apomorphine in two Outbred Parental Rat Strains and their F1 and N2 Progeny
