We provide evidence that the thalamic projections originating from the medial portion of the posterior thalamic complex to the somatosensory cortex of the rat are distributed in a detailed pattern which is complementary to the pattern of projections which originate in the ventral posterior nucleus.

With recent advances in neuroimaging and neurosurgical techniques as well as better understanding of functional motor brain circuits, there is increasing evidence that electrical deep brain stimulation (DBS) can be a powerful and safe therapeutic option for medically intractable movement disorders and neuropsychiatric diseases. For more than half a century, the ventrolateral (VL) nucleus of the...

The purpose of this study is to investigate the antinociceptive effects of ginsenosides on toothache. c-Fos immunoreactive (IR) neurons were examined after noxious intrapulpal stimulation (NS) by intrapulpal injection of 2 M KCl into upper and lower incisor pulps exposed by bone cutter in Sprague Dawley rats. The number of Fos-IR neurons was increased in the trigeminal subnucleus caudalis (Vc) ...

Retrogradely transported dyes, Fluorogold and Fast Blue were injected into both sides of the dorsal thalamus in the Monodelphis opossum. Projection of the presumed primary visual cortical area, superior colliculus and parabigeminal nucleus to the dorsal lateral geniculate nucleus and the lateral posterior--lateral intermedius nuclear complex were described. They show close similarities to the h...

FEF is innervated by nuclei in the thalamus bordering the internal medullary lamina, mainly the lateral part of the mediodorsal nucleus and the medial part of the ventroanterior nucleus. The thalamic zones most heavily connected with FEF are themselves innervated by oculomotor afferents from the intermediate layer of the superior colliculus, the substantia nigra pars reticulate, and the dentate...

The introduction of deep brain stimulation (DBS) was a historical step forward for the treatment of advanced and medically intractable movement disorders that include Parkinson's disease, dystonias, essential tremor, and Holmes' tremor. DBS is able to modulate the target region electrically in a reversible and adjustable fashion in contrast to an irreversible and destructive lesioning procedure...

The thalamus is a major relay and integration station in the central nervous system. While there is a large body of information on the firing and network properties of neurons contained within sensory thalamic nuclei, less is known about the neurons located in midline thalamic nuclei, which are thought to modulate arousal and homeostasis. One midline nucleus that has been implicated in mediatin...

Global hypoxia-ischemia interrupts oxygen delivery and blood flow to the entire brain. Previous studies of global brain hypoxia-ischemia have primarily focused on injury to the cerebral cortex and to the hippocampus. Susceptible neuronal populations also include inhibitory neurons in the thalamic reticular nucleus. We therefore investigated the impact of global brain hypoxia-ischemia on the tha...

The posterior thalamic nucleus (PO) is a higher order nucleus heavily implicated in the processing of somatosensory information. We have previously shown in rodent models that activity in PO is tightly regulated by inhibitory inputs from a GABAergic nucleus known as the zona incerta (ZI). The level of incertal inhibition varies under both physiological and pathological conditions, leading to co...