Focal dystonia has been attributed to lesions involving the basal ganglia and/or thalamus. Hand dystonia was studied in a patient with a unilateral thalamic infarction documented by MRI. A 18-year-old girl presented with severe isolated dystonia of the right hand as a sequel of perinatal infarction. MRI scan revealed infarction affecting part of the dorsomedian, lateral posterior, ventral later...

Recent discoveries of striatal GABAergic interneurons require a new conceptualization of the organization of intrastriatal circuitry and their cortical and thalamic inputs. We investigated thalamic inputs to the two populations of striatal neuropeptide Y (NPY) interneurons, plateau low threshold spike (PLTS) and NPY-neurogliaform (NGF) cells. Optogenetic activation of parafascicular inputs evok...

23 The parafascicular nucleus (Pf) receives cholinergic input from the pedunculopontine 24 nucleus, part of the reticular activating system involved in waking and REM sleep, and sends 25 projections to the cortex. We tested the hypothesis that Pf neurons fire maximally at gamma 26 band frequency (30-90 Hz), that this mechanism involves high threshold voltage-dependent 27 P/Qand N-type calcium c...

The parafascicular nucleus (Pf) receives cholinergic input from the pedunculopontine nucleus, part of the reticular activating system involved in waking and rapid eye movement (REM) sleep, and sends projections to the cortex. We tested the hypothesis that Pf neurons fire maximally at gamma band frequency (30-90 Hz), that this mechanism involves high-threshold voltage-dependent P/Q- and N-type c...

The physiological effects of ascending vagal afferent activity in the primate forebrain have not been established, and because vagus nerve stimulation (VNS) is useful clinically for treatment of epilepsy and depression, these actions need to be identified. We used a roving microelectrode to record vagal-evoked potentials in the thalamus of the macaque monkey. In addition to the anticipated acti...

Discussion Anatomical and functional data The MDTN is the second largest nuclear aggregation located within the medial part of the thalamus and is closely related to the centromedian/parafascicular nucleus complex3. Distinct thalamic nuclei, like the MDTN and centromedian/parafascicular complex, are embedded in different basal ganglia-thalamocortical loops, which integrate cognitive and emotion...