Guillamón-Vivancos Teresa, Aníbal-Martínez Mar, Puche-Aroca Lorenzo, Martini Francisco J, López-Bendito Guillermina
Instituto de Neurociencias, Universidad Miguel Hernández-Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas (UMH-CSIC), San Juan de Alicante, Alicante, Spain.
Nat Rev Neurosci. 2025 Jul 30. doi: 10.1038/s41583-025-00945-y.
The thalamus is an essential element for sensory information processing, serving as a link between peripheral sensory stimuli and cortical circuits. Consequently, the development of thalamocortical (TC) projections has been a central focus in systems neuroscience. Although substantial progress has been made in understanding the mechanisms guiding thalamic axon navigation from the diencephalon to the cortex, our understanding of the processes underlying sensory modality specificity in TC circuits remains incomplete. Modern genomic, physiological and imaging approaches have yielded exciting results, providing novel insights into the specialization of visual, somatosensory and auditory TC circuits. Recent findings have shed light on the genetic and spontaneous activity mechanisms involved in the formation of distinct sensory modalities, rekindling the interest in the thalamus and opening new research perspectives on the development of this diencephalic structure.
丘脑是感觉信息处理的关键要素，充当外周感觉刺激与皮质回路之间的连接。因此，丘脑皮质（TC）投射的发育一直是系统神经科学的核心焦点。尽管在理解引导丘脑轴突从间脑向皮质导航的机制方面已取得重大进展，但我们对TC回路中感觉模态特异性潜在过程的理解仍不完整。现代基因组学、生理学和成像方法已产生了令人兴奋的结果，为视觉、躯体感觉和听觉TC回路的特化提供了新的见解。最近的研究结果揭示了参与形成不同感觉模态的遗传和自发活动机制，重新燃起了对丘脑的兴趣，并为这个间脑结构的发育开辟了新的研究视角。
