Elsevier

Brain Research

Volume 293, Issue 2, 20 February 1984, Pages 213-223
Brain Research

Columnar organization of callosal and associational projections from rat frontal cortex

https://doi.org/10.1016/0006-8993(84)91228-9Get rights and content

Abstract

Autoradiography and HRP histochemistry were used to study the laminar and columnar distribution of callosal and associational connections of areas 6 and 10 of Krieg in the rat frontal cortex. In coronal sections through homotopic contralateral areas and ipsilateral somatosensory cortex, terminations of projections arising in frontal cortex formed discrete vertical columns; these were 250–750 μm wide and alternated with unlabeled or poorly labeled areas of approximately equal width. In reconstructions from serial coronal sections through these areas, the terminal fields formed a series of bands. The location of retrogradely labeled neurons tended to reciprocate the distribution of terminal label, although the boundaries of terminal and cell label were not always in precise register. These findings indicate that in the rat, both association and callosal projections exhibit a terminal organization remarkably similar in width and spacing to that observed in primates. Thus, a columnar mode of termination of cortico-cortical fibers may be an organizational feature common to mammalian neocortex.

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    Supported by MH 00298 and MH 38546.

    *

    Present address: Department of Isotope Research, Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot, Israel.

    **

    Present address: Department of Surgery, Georgetown University School of Medicine, Washington, DC U.S.A.

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