Early uncrossed component of the developing optic nerve with a short extracerebral course: a light and electron microscopic study of fetal ferrets.

During the study of the developing optic nerve described in the preceding paper (Guillery and Walsh, '87), small bundles of nerve fibers were seen passing between the optic nerve and the ipsilateral hypothalamus of 24-to 27-day-old prenatal ferrets. The bundles appear before any other fiber groups of the retinofugal pathway and are identifiable while the main portions of the retinofugal system are growing into the optic tracts. The bundles, made up of 50 or more axons, leave the optic nerve, emerge through the otherwise continuous layer of subpial glia and through the basal lamina of the nerve, run a short, naked, extracerebral course among collagen fibers and presumed fibroblasts, and then re-enter the central nervous system, passing rostrally and dorsally to the superficial parts of the ipsilateral hypothalamus away from the region of the chiasm. These fibers represent the earliest link between the optic nerve and the brain, but their course is not followed by the majority of retinofugal fibers developing later, which pass toward one or the other optic tract.