Furuta Takahiro, Kaneko Takeshi, Deschênes Martin
Department of Morphological Brain Science, Graduate School of Medicine, Kyoto University, Kyoto 606-8501, Japan.
J Neurosci. 2009 Apr 1;29(13):4089-95. doi: 10.1523/JNEUROSCI.5393-08.2009.
Barrel-related circuits in the somatosensory cortex of rodents process vibrissal information conveyed through the lemniscal pathway. Yet, the origin of vibrissal input to interbarrrel regions (septa) remains an unsettled issue. A recurring proposal that never received conclusive experimental support is that septa-related circuits process paralemniscal inputs conveyed through the posterior group of the thalamus. Here we show that the receptive field of septal cells is independent of paralemniscal inputs, and that septal cells derive their receptive field input from neurons in the dorsal part of the thalamic barreloids. This result provides the missing piece of evidence for a separate pathway of vibrissal information that projects to septal columns of the barrel cortex.
啮齿动物体感皮层中与桶状结构相关的神经回路处理通过lemniscal通路传递的触须信息。然而，触须输入到桶间区域（隔区）的起源仍然是一个未解决的问题。一个从未得到确凿实验支持的反复出现的提议是，与隔区相关的神经回路处理通过丘脑后组传递的旁lemniscal输入。在这里，我们表明隔区细胞的感受野独立于旁lemniscal输入，并且隔区细胞的感受野输入来自丘脑桶状小体背侧部分的神经元。这一结果为触须信息投射到桶状皮层隔区柱的独立通路提供了缺失的证据。
