Organization of primate amygdalar-thalamic pathways for emotions
Files
Date
2020-02
Authors
Timbie, Clare
García-Cabezas, Miguel Á.
Zikopoulos, Basilis
Barbas, Helen
Version
Published version
OA Version
Citation
Clare Timbie, Miguel Á García-Cabezas, Basilis Zikopoulos, Helen Barbas. 2020. "Organization of primate amygdalar-thalamic pathways for emotions.." PLoS Biol, Volume 18, Issue 2:e3000639. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.3000639
Abstract
Studies on the thalamus have mostly focused on sensory relay nuclei, but the organization of pathways associated with emotions is not well understood. We addressed this issue by testing the hypothesis that the primate amygdala acts, in part, like a sensory structure for the affective import of stimuli and conveys this information to the mediodorsal thalamic nucleus, magnocellular part (MDmc). We found that primate sensory cortices innervate amygdalar sites that project to the MDmc, which projects to the orbitofrontal cortex. As in sensory thalamic systems, large amygdalar terminals innervated excitatory relay and inhibitory neurons in the MDmc that facilitate faithful transmission to the cortex. The amygdala, however, uniquely innervated a few MDmc neurons by surrounding and isolating large segments of their proximal dendrites, as revealed by three-dimensional high-resolution reconstruction. Physiologic studies have shown that large axon terminals are found in pathways issued from motor systems that innervate other brain centers to help distinguish self-initiated from other movements. By analogy, the amygdalar pathway to the MDmc may convey signals forwarded to the orbitofrontal cortex to monitor and update the status of the environment in processes deranged in schizophrenia, resulting in attribution of thoughts and actions to external sources.
Description
License
Copyright: © 2020 Timbie et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.