Demonstration of synaptic input from prefrontal cortex to the habenula i the rat.

Using lesion-degeneration techniques at the EM level, it is confirmed that a pathway from prefrontal cortex projects to the lateral habenula, and further that it makes synaptic contacts predominantly with dendrites of neurons in the medial sector of the lateral nucleus. The available neuroanatomical evidence points to a role for habenula as a regulator of the activity of the meso-cortical dopamine pathway by the interaction of this cortico-habenular pathway with a wide variety of limbic inputs in the medial sector of lateral habenula.