Ogren M P, Hendrickson A E
J Comp Neurol. 1979 Nov 1;188(1):179-99. doi: 10.1002/cne.901880113.
The origin of the various types of axon terminals in Macaca pulvinar remains uncertain because of the contradictory results obtained in EM degeneration studies. We have used EM-autoradiography to determine the morphology of terminals in the inferior and lateral pulvinar which originate from neurons in visual cortex. After injections of H3 proline into area 17, both the small diameter (RS) and the large diameter (RL) terminals containing round vesicles and making asymmetric contacts are labeled in the two pulvinar subdivisions. Labeled and unlabeled terminals are intermixed within the pulvinar focus which suggests that the dendrites of the same pulvinar neuron receive overlapping inputs from several cortical areas. Because only 5% of the pulvinar terminals are RLs (Ogren and Hendrickson, '79), and this small number of RLs originates from at least two visual cortical areas plus the superior colliculus (Partlow et al., '77), superior colliculus input to inferior pulvinar is small compared to the combined RS and RL cortical input. Together the findings from this study and the preceding paper (Ogren and Henderickson, '79), show that while pulvinar is typical of other thalamic nuclei in the structure of its neurons and synapses, it differs in that the input from subcortical structures is minimal. It is suggested that inferior and lateral pulvinar function principally as integrators of visula cortical information.
由于在电子显微镜下的变性研究中得到了相互矛盾的结果，猕猴丘脑枕叶中各种类型轴突终末的起源仍不明确。我们利用电子显微镜放射自显影技术来确定丘脑枕叶下部和外侧终末的形态，这些终末起源于视觉皮层的神经元。将H3脯氨酸注射到17区后，在丘脑枕叶的两个亚区中，含有圆形小泡并形成不对称突触的小直径（RS）和大直径（RL）终末均被标记。标记和未标记的终末在丘脑枕叶焦点内相互混合，这表明同一丘脑枕叶神经元的树突接受来自几个皮层区域的重叠输入。由于只有5%的丘脑枕叶终末是RL型（奥格伦和亨德里克森，1979年），而且这少量的RL型终末至少起源于两个视觉皮层区域以及上丘（帕特洛等人，1977年），与RS型和RL型皮层输入的总和相比，上丘对丘脑枕叶下部的输入较少。这项研究和前一篇论文（奥格伦和亨德里克森，1979年）的研究结果共同表明，虽然丘脑枕叶在其神经元和突触结构方面与其他丘脑核相似，但其不同之处在于来自皮层下结构的输入极少。有人提出，丘脑枕叶下部和外侧主要起到整合视觉皮层信息的作用。
