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The thalamic reticular nucleus of the adult rat: experimental anatomical studies

  • Published:
Journal of Neurocytology

Summary

The thalamic reticular nucleus (TRN) is a sheet-like nucleus partially enclosing the dorsolateral and anterior aspects of the thalamus and traversed by the thalamo-cortical and cortico-thalamic fibre systems. This paper describes the cellular and synaptic organization of the TRN in adult albino rats on the basis of LM and EM studies of normal animals and experimental animals with injections of horseradish peroxidase (HRP) and/or lesions in various parts of the brain. Particular attention was paid to the dorso-caudal part of the TRN, which establishes connections with visual centres.

LM-HRP preparations show that the neurons of TRN project only to ipsilateral dorsal thalamus; no labelled cell bodies were found in TRN after injections into the cortex or any part of the brain stem caudal to the thalamus. Small injections into dorsal thalamus result in a small cluster of labelled neurons and an associated patch of terminal label in TRN. The dorso-caudal part of the nucleus projects to the dorsal lateral geniculate nucleus, the ventro-caudal part to the medial geniculate nucleus and a large part of the nucleus anterior to the areas associated with the geniculate nuclei projects to the ventrobasal nucleus. No evidence was found for a widespread distribution of reticulo-thalamic axons and the connections between TRN and the dorsal lateral geniculate nucleus and between TRN and the ventrobasal nucleus show a fine-grain topographical organization with more rostral and dorsal parts of TRN projecting to more rostral and dorsal parts of the dorsal lateral geniculate and ventrobasal nuclei.

The neurons of TRN are variable in size (range of somal diametersc. 10–20 μm), shape (cell bodies are most commonly ellipsoidal) and dendritic morphology (bitufted and bipolar arrangements most common), but no basis for subdividing them into more than one class was found with any of the techniques used. The cell body and dendrites are commonly aligned parallel to the surface of TRN and at right angles to the traversing fibre bundles. The dendrites do not branch extensively and are only moderately spinous. Long, hair-like spines corresponding to those described by Scheibel & Scheibel (1966) were not found: nor were dendritic bundles found to be as prominent in EM material as reported by these authors in LM-Golgi material. Plasma membranes of dendrites in small bundles and of contiguous somata were commonly in direct contact over large areas, but gap junctions between them were not seen.

The neuropil of TRN is simple with three major axon terminal types.D-type terminals (about 56% of all terminals in visual TRN) have closely packed spherical synaptic vesicles (42 nm diameter);L-type terminals (about 31%) are paler, slightly larger and have less densely packed synaptic vesicles (46 nm diameter); both terminal types make Gray type 1 synaptic contacts on dendritic spines and dendritic shafts and rarely also on cell bodies and axon hillocks.F-type terminals (about 8%) contain flattened synaptic vesicles in a dark matrix and make Gray type 2 contacts with dendrites, cell bodies and axon hillocks. In visual TRN, D-type terminals (but not all) degenerate after ablation of ipsilateral visual cortex and L-type terminals (but not all) degenerate after lesion of ipsilateral dorsal lateral geniculate nucleus; the density of degenerating terminals is higher after cortical than after geniculate lesions. Indirect evidence suggests that F-type terminals may be (or may include) collaterals of reticulo-thalamic projection cells, but no evidence was found for a widespread or dense plexus of such collaterals.

After injection of HRP into the dorsal lateral geniculate nucleus, labelled axon terminals in visual TRN (many clearly L-type) were found in synaptic contact with retrogradely labelled dendrites of reticulo-geniculate projection cells. When HRP injection was combined with ablation of ipsilateral visual cortex, degenerating axon terminals (most of them identifiable as D-type) were also found in synaptic contact with retrogradely-labelled dendrites of reticulo-geniculate projection cells.

Thus, neurons of visual TRN in the rat receive monosynaptic, presumptively excitatory input from collaterals of cortico-geniculate and geniculo-cortical axons, and project in a topographically-organized manner to the ipsilateral dorsal lateral geniculate nucleus (where they make Gray type 2 GABAergic and presumptively inhibitory synaptic contacts chiefly with the dendrites of geniculo-cortical projection cells). A similar pattern of organization is seen in other parts of the TRN and these data are compatible with the view that the TRN (and the perigeniculate nucleus of the cat thalamus, which is similar in several respects to visual TRN) forms part of a negative feed-back system by which the activity of thalamo-cortical projection neurons is regulated.

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  1. Peter T. Ohara

    Present address: Department of Anatomy, University of California, School of Medicine, 94143, San Francisco, California, USA

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  1. Department of Anatomy, University College London, Gower Street, WC1E 6BT, London, UK

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Ohara, P.T., Lieberman, A.R. The thalamic reticular nucleus of the adult rat: experimental anatomical studies. J Neurocytol 14, 365–411 (1985). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01217752

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