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The Journal of Neuroscience, June 17, 2009, 29(24):7815-7819; doi:10.1523/JNEUROSCI.1564-09.2009

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Brief Communications
Synaptic Properties of the Mammillary and Cortical Afferents to the Anterodorsal Thalamic Nucleus in the Mouse

Iraklis Petrof and S. Murray Sherman

Department of Neurobiology, University of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois 60637

Correspondence should be addressed to S. Murray Sherman, Department of Neurobiology, University of Chicago, Abbott J-117, 947 East 58th Street, Chicago, IL 60637. Email: msherman{at}bsd.uchicago.edu

Input to sensory thalamic nuclei can be classified as either driver or modulator, based on whether or not the information conveyed determines basic postsynaptic receptive field properties. Here we demonstrate that this distinction can also be applied to inputs received by nonsensory thalamic areas. Using flavoprotein autofluorescence imaging, we developed two slice preparations that contain the afferents to the anterodorsal thalamic nucleus (AD) from the lateral mammillary body and the cortical afferents arriving through the internal capsule, respectively. We examined the synaptic properties of these inputs and found that the mammillothalamic pathway exhibits paired-pulse depression, lack of a metabotropic glutamate component, and an all-or-none response pattern, which are all signatures of a driver pathway. On the other hand, the cortical input exhibits graded paired-pulse facilitation and the capacity to activate metabotropic glutamatergic responses, all features of a modulatory pathway. Our results extend the notion of driving and modulating inputs to the AD, indicating that it is a first-order relay nucleus and suggesting that these criteria may be general to the whole of thalamus.

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Received April 1, 2009; revised May 7, 2009; accepted May 22, 2009.

Correspondence should be addressed to S. Murray Sherman, Department of Neurobiology, University of Chicago, Abbott J-117, 947 East 58th Street, Chicago, IL 60637. Email: msherman{at}bsd.uchicago.edu

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