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Rethinking the thalamus

Reward-sensitive neurons are present throughout the brain. A report in Science now shows that a subset of thalamic neurons respond selectively to the smaller of two rewards, as opposed to just reflecting reward magnitude, as do neurons in other brain areas.

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Figure 1: Parallel thalamostriatal loops involving the basal ganglia and the thalamus in monkeys (after ref. 6).

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Glimcher, P., Lau, B. Rethinking the thalamus. Nat Neurosci 8, 983–984 (2005). https://doi.org/10.1038/nn0805-983

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