The core, a t.hay. and a left, is difficult to locate in the primate brain where, like the position in the rat brain, it is presumed to lie rostral in the pons tegment section at the height of the motor nucleus of the 5th cranial nerve right next to the fasciculus longitudinalis medialis.
The ventral vertebral nucleus relays signals from the GPi via the habenula and from the vestibular nuclei and has well-developed round-trip connections with the medial wart body nucleus via the tractus mammillo-tegmentalis and via the pedunculus corporis mammillaris.
The ventral tegment nucleus is presumed to be involved in memory storage, especially spatial working sets, e.g. of importance for navigation in previously known environments (cf. with DTN).
Vann S.D . (2009) Gudden's ventral tegmental nucleus is vital for memory: re-evaluating diencephalic inputs for amnesia. Brain: 132. 2372–2384.