[Participation of anterior thalamic nuclei in the visual afferentation of the hippocampus in the rat].

The localization of retinofugal projections in the rat studied by means of the autoradiography and HRP methods coincides with the site of sources of direct hippocampal projections in the anterior thalamic nuclei found on the basis of the HRP retrograde axonal transport. The data obtained firstly represent the anterodorsal and anterolateral thalamic nuclei as a main thalamic source of hippocampal visual afferents in mammals and permit reconstructing the short visual input to the hippocamp, i.e. the retino-thalamo-hippocampal pathway.