The Pedunculopontine nucleus (PPN) has long been associated with locomotion as part of themesencephalic locomotor region, and in arousal and sleep/wake states as part of theascending reticular activating system. In addition, several studies indicate that the PPN isinvolved in several other functions such as path integration, visual and auditory processing,attention and action-selection. As it was recently discovered thatoptogenetic stimulation of the rostral PPN can induce full body motor arrest, we wanted to investigateif this behavior was limited to motor output, or if sensory input was halted as well. To this end, we developed a visuospatial cue task (VSCT) which requires the ability to perceive a visual cue. After the rats were successfully trained in the task,it was paired with optogenetic stimulation to induce motor arrest during cue presentation. Here we show that stimulation of the rostral PPN significantly reduced theaccuracy of the rats and markedly increased side-bias during laser stimulation trials in the VSCT.