The Dual Nature of the Thalamic Input to Cortex
The Dual Nature of the Thalamic Input to Cortex
This chapter finds that wherever appropriate methods have been used to demonstrate the branched origin of a driver input to the thalamus, it has been found. However, such branching patterns have not yet been studied for many cortical areas. Further evidence about the branching patterns of these axons for species including and extending beyond mouse, rat, cat, and monkey, and for many driver afferents to higher order thalamic relays, is needed. This would test whether all driver afferents to thalamus, to first order as well as higher order relays, are branches of axons that innervate circuits concerned with the control of movements. The chapter shows that many of the axons carrying messages to thalamus for relay to cortex have branches that innervate motor centers so that the cortex receives a great many messages that have a dual significance, representing events in the body or the world on the one hand and instructions for upcoming movements on the other.
Keywords: driver input, thalamus, cortical areas, axons, driver afferents, thalamic relays
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