Synaptic organization of the cerebello-thalamo-cerebral pathway in the cat. II. Input-output organization of single thalamocortical neurons in the ventrolateral thalamus.

Input-output neural organization of single thalamocortical (T-C) neurons in the ventrolateral nucleus (VL) of the thalamus was investigated using an intracellular recording technique in the anesthetized cat. Stimulation of the dentate (DN) and the interpositus (IN) nuclei produced monosynaptic unitary EPSPs of large amplitude in T-C neurons projecting to the motor cortex or area 6 over the entire mediolateral region of VL. The thalamic projections from DN and IN are very wide and there is a considerable overlap between the dentate and the interpositus projection areas in VL. And in this overlapping area, a considerable number of T-C neurons (50%) receive inputs from both DN and IN. More than 40% of T-C neurons were antidromically activated from widely separated electrodes in the motor cortex, indicating that the cortical arbolization of single T-C neurons is very wide and the number of these neurons with widely divergent projections is considerably large.