The corticopontine system in the rat. II. The projection pattern.

The projection from various cortical areas to the pontine nuclei (PN) of rats was investigated with anterograde tracing methods. As a general topological rule, a medial to lateral succession of the PN projection fields from the motor, somatosensory, and visual cortices was observed. Apart from the main "private" projections, each cortical area was found to send fibers also to disjunctive "extra-projection" territories which receive convergent inputs from two or more cortical areas. The sensorimotor and visual cortices provide the bulk of corticofugal fibers, but contributions from the following association areas were noted: frontal cortex, (dependent of the thalamic mediodorsal nucleus), rhinal sulcus region, and cingulate cortex.