Three-Dimensional Heterogeneity of Cerebellar Interposed Nucleus-Recipient Zones in the Thalamic Nuclei
Kuang-Yi Ma1 • Xin-Yu Cai1 • Xin-Tai Wang1 • Zhao-Xiang Wang2 • Wan-Meng Huang1 • Zhi-Ying Wu3 • Zhou-Yan Feng2 • Ying Shen1
1 Department of Physiology and Department of Neurology of the First Affiliated Hospital, Zhejiang University School of Medicine, Hangzhou 310058, China 2 Key Laboratory of Biomedical Engineering of the Ministry of Education, College of Biomedical Engineering and Instrumentation Science, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou 310013, China 3 Department of Neurology and Research Center of Neurology in the Second Affiliated Hospital, and Key Laboratory of Medical Neurobiology of Zhejiang Province, Zhejiang University School of Medicine, Hangzhou 310058, China
Abstract
The cerebellum is conceptualized as a processor of complex movements and is also endowed with roles in cognitive and emotional behaviors. Although the axons of deep cerebellar nuclei are known to project to primary thalamic nuclei, macroscopic investigation of the characteristics of these projections, such as the spatial distribution of recipient zones, is lacking. Here, we studied the output of the cerebellar interposed nucleus (IpN) to the ventrolateral (VL) and centrolateral (CL) thalamic nuclei using electrophysiological recording in vivo and trans-synaptic viral tracing. We found that IpN stimulation induced monosynaptic evoked potentials (EPs) in the VL but not the CL region. Furthermore, both the EPs induced by the IpN and the innervation of IpN projections displayed substantial heterogeneity across the VL region in three-dimensional space. These findings indicate that the recipient zones of IpN inputs vary between and within thalamic nuclei and may differentially control thalamo-cortical networks.
Keywords
Cerebellum; Thalamus; Interposed nucleus;Ventrolateral nucleus; Trans-synaptic tracing
