Norden J J, Kaas J H
J Comp Neurol. 1978 Dec 15;182(4):707-25. doi: 10.1002/cne.901820409.
Intraaxonal retrograde transport of the protein horseradish peroxidase (HRP) was used to identify relay neurons in the dorsal lateral geniculate nucleus (LGN) of owl (Aotus trivirgatus) and rhesus (Macaca mulatta) monkeys. In both species, from 94.1-98.6% of the neurons within columns extending through both parvocellular and magnocellular layers were labeled following injection of HRP into striate cortex. Labeled neurons were also identified in the thin ventral-most S(0) Layers. Although most of the cells within the thin interlaminar regions in the LGN of both species were labeled following injections of HRP, many unlabeled neurons were identified within the large cell-rich interlaminar region (IL) between the internal parvocellular and internal magnocellular layers in the LGN of the owl monkey, suggesting that IL may be a specialized region containing a large number of intrinsic neurons. Finally, measurement of the cell diameters of neurons within the densely labeled areas in relay layers revealed that labeled and unlabeled neurons could not be distinguished on the basis of cell body size alone and that some of the smallest cells of the LGN project to striate cortex. These findings indicate that nearly all of the neurons of the main relay layers of the LGN in these two primates are relay cells and that the organization of the LGN in primates may differ significantly from that of other mammals with respect to the percentage of interneurons.
利用蛋白质辣根过氧化物酶（HRP）的轴突逆行运输来鉴定猫头鹰猴（夜猴）和恒河猴的背外侧膝状核（LGN）中的中继神经元。在这两个物种中，将HRP注入纹状皮层后，穿过小细胞层和大细胞层的柱内94.1%-98.6%的神经元被标记。在最腹侧的薄S(0)层中也鉴定出了标记神经元。虽然在这两个物种的LGN中，薄的层间区域内的大多数细胞在注射HRP后都被标记，但在猫头鹰猴LGN的内小细胞层和内大细胞层之间富含大细胞的大层间区域（IL）内，鉴定出了许多未标记的神经元，这表明IL可能是一个含有大量内在神经元的特殊区域。最后，对中继层中密集标记区域内神经元的细胞直径进行测量发现，仅根据细胞体大小无法区分标记和未标记的神经元，并且LGN中一些最小的细胞投射到纹状皮层。这些发现表明，这两种灵长类动物LGN主要中继层的几乎所有神经元都是中继细胞，并且就中间神经元的百分比而言，灵长类动物LGN的组织可能与其他哺乳动物有显著差异。
