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Cerebral Cortex Advance Access originally published online on January 15, 2009
Cerebral Cortex 2009 19(9):2025-2037; doi:10.1093/cercor/bhn228
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© 2009 The Authors
This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/2.0/uk/) which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

The Thalamocortical Projection Systems in Primate: An Anatomical Support for Multisensory and Sensorimotor Interplay

Céline Cappe1,2,4, Anne Morel3, Pascal Barone2 and Eric M. Rouiller1

1 Unit of Physiology and Program in Neurosciences, Department of Medicine, Faculty of Sciences, University of Fribourg, Chemin du Musée 5, CH-1700 Fribourg, Switzerland, 2 Centre de Recherche Cerveau et Cognition, Unité Mixte de Recherche–Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique 5549, Université Paul Sabatier Toulouse 3 Faculté de Médecine de Rangueil, 31062 Toulouse Cedex 9, France, 3 Department of Functional Neurosurgery, Neurosurgery Clinic, University Hospital Zürich, Sternwartstrasse 6, CH-8091 Zürich, Switzerland, 4 The Functional Electrical Neuroimaging Laboratory, Neuropsychology and Neurorehabilitation Service and Radiology Service, Centre Hospitalier Universitaire Vaudois and University of Lausanne, Rue du Bugnon 46, 1011 Lausanne, Switzerland

Address correspondence to email: eric.rouiller{at}unifr.ch.

Multisensory and sensorimotor integrations are usually considered to occur in superior colliculus and cerebral cortex, but few studies proposed the thalamus as being involved in these integrative processes. We investigated whether the organization of the thalamocortical (TC) systems for different modalities partly overlap, representing an anatomical support for multisensory and sensorimotor interplay in thalamus. In 2 macaque monkeys, 6 neuroanatomical tracers were injected in the rostral and caudal auditory cortex, posterior parietal cortex (PE/PEa in area 5), and dorsal and ventral premotor cortical areas (PMd, PMv), demonstrating the existence of overlapping territories of thalamic projections to areas of different modalities (sensory and motor). TC projections, distinct from the ones arising from specific unimodal sensory nuclei, were observed from motor thalamus to PE/PEa or auditory cortex and from sensory thalamus to PMd/PMv. The central lateral nucleus and the mediodorsal nucleus project to all injected areas, but the most significant overlap across modalities was found in the medial pulvinar nucleus. The present results demonstrate the presence of thalamic territories integrating different sensory modalities with motor attributes. Based on the divergent/convergent pattern of TC and corticothalamic projections, 4 distinct mechanisms of multisensory and sensorimotor interplay are proposed.

Key Words: auditory system • corticothalamic • monkey • motor system • somatosensory system • tracing


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