Turner B H, Herkenham M
Department of Anatomy, Howard University School of Medicine, Washington, D.C. 20059.
J Comp Neurol. 1991 Nov 8;313(2):295-325. doi: 10.1002/cne.903130208.
We used the autoradiographic tract-tracing method to define the amygdaloid projection fields after injecting 3H-amino acids into individual thalamic nuclei in the rat. The parvicellular division of the ventroposterior nucleus, the thalamic taste relay, projected lightly to the central and lateral amygdaloid nuclei. The central medial, interanteromedial, and paraventricular thalamic nuclei, viscerosensory relays of the thorax and abdomen, projected heavily to the amygdala. All projected to the basolateral amygdaloid nucleus, the paraventricular nucleus in addition having terminations in the central nucleus, the amygdaloid portion of the nucleus of the stria terminalis, and the amygdalohippocampal transition area. The magnocellular division of the medial geniculate, a thalamic auditory (and, to a moderate degree, a spinothalamic) relay, sent heavy projections to the central, accessory basal, lateral, and anterior cortical nuclei, and to the anterior amygdaloid area and the nucleus of the accessory olfactory tract. Other thalamic nuclei projecting to the amygdala, for which functions could not be associated, were the paratenial and subparafascicular nuclei. The former projected to the lateral, basal, and posterolateral cortical nuclei; the latter projected very lightly to the central, medial, and basal accessory nuclei. These results show that, like the cortical amygdaloid nuclei, which are sensory (olfactory) in nature, the subcortical amygdaloid nuclei must have major sensory functions. These thalamic afferents, when correlated with cortical and brainstem data from the literature, suggested that the amygdala is in receipt of sensory information from many modalities. To uncover the manner by which such information is processed by the amygdala and relayed to effector areas of the brain, six hypothetical mechanisms relating to modality specificity and convergence were posited. By charting sensory-related afferents to all subdivisions of the amygdala, each nucleus was characterized as to its mechanism of information processing. Four proposed amygdaloid systems emerged from this analysis. A unimodal corticomedial amygdaloid system relays pheromonal information from the accessory olfactory bulb to medial basal forebrain and hypothalamic areas. A second system--the lateral-basomedial--collects and combines input from a number of sensory modalities and distributes it to the same basal forebrain and hypothalamic areas as the corticomedial. The central system appears to concentrate the effect of viscerosensory information arriving from multiple brainstem, thalamic, cortical, and amygdaloid sources; this information is combined with significant auditory and spinothalamic inputs from the thalamus and cortex. The central system projects to lateral nuclei in the basal forebrain, hypothalamus, and brainstem.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 400 WORDS)
我们采用放射自显影束路追踪法，在大鼠的各个丘脑核团注射³H-氨基酸后，确定杏仁核的投射区域。腹后核的小细胞部，即丘脑味觉传导中继核，向中央杏仁核和外侧杏仁核有少量投射。中央内侧丘脑核、前内侧丘脑核和室旁丘脑核，作为胸部和腹部的内脏感觉传导中继核，大量投射至杏仁核。所有这些核团均投射至基底外侧杏仁核，室旁丘脑核还在中央杏仁核、终纹床核的杏仁核部分以及杏仁海马过渡区有终末。内侧膝状体的大细胞部，作为丘脑听觉（以及在一定程度上的脊髓丘脑）传导中继核，向中央核、副基底核、外侧核和前皮质核，以及杏仁前区和副嗅球核发出大量投射。其他投射至杏仁核但功能尚不明确的丘脑核团是旁中央核和束旁下核。前者投射至外侧、基底和后外侧皮质核；后者非常少量地投射至中央、内侧和基底副核。这些结果表明，与本质上为感觉性（嗅觉）的皮质杏仁核一样，皮质下杏仁核必定具有主要的感觉功能。这些丘脑传入纤维，与文献中的皮质和脑干数据相关联时，提示杏仁核接收来自多种感觉模态的信息。为揭示杏仁核处理此类信息并将其传递至脑效应区的方式，提出了六种与模态特异性和汇聚相关的假设机制。通过绘制与感觉相关的传入纤维至杏仁核的所有亚区，对每个核团的信息处理机制进行了表征。由此分析得出了四个拟议的杏仁核系统。一个单模态皮质内侧杏仁核系统将来自副嗅球的信息素信息传递至内侧基底前脑和下丘脑区域。第二个系统——外侧-基底内侧系统——收集并整合来自多种感觉模态的输入，并将其分配至与皮质内侧系统相同的基底前脑和下丘脑区域。中央系统似乎集中了来自多个脑干、丘脑、皮质和杏仁核来源的内脏感觉信息的效应；这些信息与来自丘脑和皮质的大量听觉和脊髓丘脑输入相结合。中央系统投射至基底前脑、下丘脑和脑干的外侧核。（摘要截取自400字）
