Sherman S Murray
Department of Neurobiology, University of Chicago, 947 E. 58th Street, Chicago, IL 60637, USA.
Curr Opin Neurobiol. 2007 Aug;17(4):417-22. doi: 10.1016/j.conb.2007.07.003. Epub 2007 Aug 17.
The lateral geniculate nucleus and pulvinar are examples of two different types of relay: the former is a first order relay, transmitting information from a subcortical source (retina), while the latter is mostly a higher order relay, transmitting information from layer 5 of one cortical area to another cortical area. First and higher order thalamic relays can also be recognized for much of the rest of thalamus, and most of thalamus seems to be comprised of higher order relays. Higher order relays seem especially important to general corticocortical communication, and this challenges and extends the conventional view that such communication is based on direct corticocortical connections.
前者是一级中继，从皮质下源（视网膜）传递信息，而后者大多是高级中继，从一个皮质区域的第5层向另一个皮质区域传递信息。丘脑的其余大部分区域也可识别出一级和高级丘脑中继，并且丘脑的大部分似乎由高级中继组成。高级中继对一般的皮质-皮质通信似乎尤为重要，这对传统观点提出了挑战并加以扩展，即这种通信基于直接的皮质-皮质连接。
