Chapter 4 The specificity of the nonspecific thalamus: The midline nuclei

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The concept of a nonspecific thalamus has been substantially revised in the past several years, so that it is composed of a heterogeneous collection of individually signatured cell groups. The term “nonspecific” has been dismissed, but it has left behind a great deal of confusion and the embarrassing impression that the nonspecific thalamus has not found a satisfactory anatomical identity. This chapter reviews the midline thalamic region, which is part of this complex territory. It aims to define the midline thalamus as a collection of cell groups whose structural features and circuits differ greatly from those of adjacent structures and from all other portions of the “nonspecific” thalamus. The chapter discusses midline in relation to the intralaminar thalamus because these two regions have been unified historically in the same entity, and they are still often considered as a single group. This is due to the common belief that midline and intralaminar nuclei share functional features, based on their preferential innervation from the brain stem core and their robust connections with the basal ganglia.

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    1

    On leave from the Department of Anatomy and Cell Biology, UCLA, Los Angeles, CA, USA.

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