Interdisciplinary Program in Neuroscience, Georgetown University School of Medicine, Washington, DC, United States.
Department of Pharmacology and Physiology, Georgetown University School of Medicine, Washington, DC, United States.
Front Neural Circuits. 2018 Oct 24;12:91. doi: 10.3389/fncir.2018.00091. eCollection 2018.
Neuropsychological and neuroimaging studies have suggested the presence of a fast, subcortical route for the processing of emotionally-salient visual information in the primate brain. This putative pathway consists of the superior colliculus (SC), pulvinar and amygdala. While the presence of such a pathway has been confirmed in sub-primate species, it has yet to be documented in the primate brain using conventional anatomical methods. We injected retrograde tracers into the amygdala and anterograde tracers into the colliculus, and examined regions of colocalization of these signals within the pulvinar of the macaque. Anterograde tracers injected into the SC labeled axonal projections within the pulvinar, primarily within the oral, lateral and medial subdivisions. These axonal projections from the colliculus colocalized with cell bodies within the pulvinar that were labeled by retrograde tracer injected into the lateral amygdala. This zone of overlap was most notable in the medial portions of the medial (PM), oral (PO) and inferior pulvinar (PI), and was often densely concentrated in the vicinity of the brachium of the SC. These data provide an anatomical basis for the previously suggested pathway mediating fast processing of emotionally salient information.
神经心理学和神经影像学研究表明，灵长类动物大脑中存在一条快速的、皮质下的途径，用于处理情感相关的视觉信息。这条假定的通路包括上丘（SC）、丘脑枕和杏仁核。虽然在亚灵长类动物中已经证实了这种通路的存在，但使用传统的解剖学方法尚未在灵长类动物大脑中记录到这种通路。我们将逆行示踪剂注入杏仁核，将顺行示踪剂注入丘脑中，然后检查这些信号在猕猴丘脑枕中的共定位区域。注入 SC 的顺行示踪剂标记了丘脑枕内的轴突投射，主要位于口腔、外侧和内侧分支内。这些来自丘脑中的轴突投射与逆行示踪剂注入外侧杏仁核所标记的丘脑枕内的细胞体共定位。这种重叠区域在丘脑枕的内侧部分（PM）、口腔部分（PO）和下丘脑枕（PI）最为明显，并且常常在 SC 的臂附近密集集中。这些数据为先前提出的快速处理情感相关信息的通路提供了解剖学基础。
