Terminology of the thalamus and its representation in a part-whole relation.

In stereotaxic neurosurgery, a variety of operative procedures focus on thalamic targets. The nomenclature of thalamic nuclei and subnuclei, however, has not yet been settled. In clinical and laboratory environments several terminologies coexist. This is an obstacle to both communication and a better understanding of recent electrophysiological findings. In the late 1980s, the application of new histochemical and immunohistochemical methods led to a deeper insight into existing correlationships between the nomenclatures. As a uniform terminology of the thalamus is still lacking, we created a knowledge-based system (THALAMUS) which gives a comprehensible survey about the most important terminologies. The different nomenclatures are related to each other by organizing them in a component-integral relation. This part-whole relation contains both the knowledge on the subdivisions of the thalamus as well as the knowledge on the correlations between the various nomenclatures.