Subcortical connections of the perirhinal, postrhinal, and entorhinal cortices of the rat. I. afferents: SUBCORTICAL AFFERENTS OF PERIRHINAL, POSTRHINAL, AND ENTORHINAL CORTICES
In this study we characterized the subcortical afferents for the rat PER areas 35 and 36, POR, and the lateral and medial entorhinal areas (LEA and MEA). We analyzed 33 retrograde tract-tracing experiments distributed across the five regions. For each experiment, we estimated the total numbers, percentages, and densities of labeled cells in 36 subcortical structures and nuclei distributed across septum, basal ganglia, claustrum, amygdala, olfactory structures, thalamus, and hypothalamus. We found that the complement of subcortical inputs differs across the five regions, especially the PER and POR. The PER receives input from the reuniens, suprageniculate, and medial geniculate thalamic nuclei as well as the amygdala. Overall, the subcortical inputs to the PER are consistent with a role in perception, multimodal processing, and the formation of associations that include the motivational significance of individual items and objects. Subcortical inputs to the POR were dominated by the dorsal thalamus, particularly the lateral posterior nucleus, a region implicated in visuospatial attention. The complement of subcortical inputs to the POR is consistent with a role in representing and monitoring the local spatial context. We also report that, in addition to the PER, the LEA and the medial band of the MEA also receive strong amygdala input. In contrast, subcortical input to the POR and the MEA lateral band includes much less amygdala input and is dominated by dorsal thalamic nuclei, particularly nuclei involved in spatial information processing. Like the cortical inputs, the patterns of subcortical inputs to these regions are consistent both with the view that the dorsal hippocampus is important for spatial cognition and the ventral hippocampus is important for affective cognition, and the view that they provide considerable functional integration. We conclude that the patterns of subcortical inputs to the PER, POR, and the entorhinal LEA and MEA provide further evidence for functional differentiation in the medial temporal lobe
