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. Author manuscript; available in PMC: 2023 Oct 1.
Published in final edited form as: Trends Neurosci. 2022 Aug 19:S0166-2236(22)00144-8. doi: 10.1016/j.tins.2022.07.002

Figure 1: Reciprocal Connectivity of Prefrontal Cortex with Brainstem Arousal Nuclei.

Figure 1:

The prefrontal cortex (PFC) is reciprocally connected to numerous subcortical arousal nuclei, including the serotonergic dorsal raphe (DR), noradrenergic locus coeruleus (LC), cholinergic system of the basal forebrain (BFCS), and dopaminergic ventral tegmental area (VTA). Thus, much like the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex is involved in recurrent networks across the cortex that are important for content of consciousness, the medial prefrontal cortex is involved in recurrent networks with subcortical regions that are important for the level of consciousness. Modified from [18].