Anterior nucleus of the thalamus

The anterior nucleus of thalamus (ANT) is a key component of the hippocampal system for episodic memory. The ANT consist of 3 subnuclei with distinct connectivity with the subicular cortex, retrosplenial cortex, and mammillary bodies. Via its connections with the anterior cingulate and orbitomedial prefrontal cortex, the ANT may also contribute to reciprocal hippocampal-prefrontal interactions involved in emotional and executive functions. As in other thalamic nuclei, neurons of the ANT have 2 different state-dependent patterns of discharge, tonic and burst-firing; some ANT neurons also contribute to propagation of the theta rhythm, which is important for mechanisms of synaptic plasticity of the hippocampal circuit. Clinical and experimental evidence indicate that damage of the ANT or its inputs from the mammillary bodies are primarily responsible for the episodic memory deficit observed in Wernicke-Korsakoff syndrome and thalamic stroke. Experimental models also indicate that the ANT may have a role in the propagation of seizure activity both in absence and in focal seizures. Because of its central connectivity and possible role in propagation of seizure activity, the ANT has become an attractive target for deep brain stimulation (DBS) for treatment of medically refractory epilepsy. The ANT is one of the nuclei preferentially affected in prion disorders, such as fatal familial insomnia, but the relationship between ANT involvement and the clinical manifestations of these disorders remains unclear. The connectivity patterns and electrophysiology of the ANT have been the subject of several reviews.1–4

[1]  Steve S. Chung,et al.  Electrical stimulation of the anterior nucleus of thalamus for treatment of refractory epilepsy , 2010, Epilepsia.

[2]  C. Caltagirone,et al.  Vascular thalamic amnesia: A reappraisal , 2011, Neuropsychologia.

[3]  Julie R. Dumont,et al.  Anterior thalamic nuclei lesions in rats disrupt markers of neural plasticity in distal limbic brain regions , 2012, Neuroscience.

[4]  P. Cortelli,et al.  Fatal familial insomnia and dysautonomia with selective degeneration of thalamic nuclei. , 1986, The New England journal of medicine.

[5]  J. T. Erichsen,et al.  Segregation of parallel inputs to the anteromedial and anteroventral thalamic nuclei of the rat , 2013, The Journal of comparative neurology.

[6]  G. Brown,et al.  Evoked metabolic responses in the limbic-striate system produced by stimulation of anterior thalamic nucleus in man. , 1984, International journal of neurology.

[7]  R. Harper,et al.  Mammillary Body and Fornix Injury in Congenital Central Hypoventilation Syndrome , 2009, Pediatric Research.

[8]  J. T. Erichsen,et al.  Selective lamina dysregulation in granular retrosplenial cortex (area 29) after anterior thalamic lesions: an in situ hybridization and trans-neuronal tracing study in rats , 2010, Neuroscience.

[9]  R. Wennberg,et al.  Cortical activation with deep brain stimulation of the anterior thalamus for epilepsy , 2006, Clinical Neurophysiology.

[10]  A Textbook of Neuroanatomy, M.A. Patestas, L.P. Gartner (Eds.). Blackwell Publishing (2006), ISBN: 1-4051-0340-X , 2007 .

[11]  Clement Hamani,et al.  Deep brain stimulation of the anterior nucleus of the thalamus: Effects of electrical stimulation on pilocarpine-induced seizures and status epilepticus , 2008, Epilepsy Research.

[12]  Julie R. Dumont,et al.  Unraveling the contributions of the diencephalon to recognition memory: a review. , 2011, Learning & memory.

[13]  G. Macchi,et al.  Diffuse thalamic degeneration in fatal familial insomnia. A morphometric study , 1997, Brain Research.

[14]  Robert S Fisher,et al.  Anticonvulsant effect of anterior thalamic high frequency electrical stimulation in the rat , 1997, Epilepsy Research.

[15]  J. Aggleton,et al.  Differential cognitive effects of colloid cysts in the third ventricle that spare or compromise the fornix. , 2000, Brain : a journal of neurology.

[16]  G. V. Prisco,et al.  Theta-rhythmically firing neurons in the anterior thalamus: implications for mnemonic functions of Papez’s circuit , 2001, Neuroscience.

[17]  E. Maguire,et al.  What does the retrosplenial cortex do? , 2009, Nature Reviews Neuroscience.

[18]  Seralynne D. Vann,et al.  Re-evaluating the role of the mammillary bodies in memory , 2010, Neuropsychologia.

[19]  S. Sherman.  Tonic and burst firing: dual modes of thalamocortical relay , 2001, Trends in Neurosciences.

[20]  R. Bakay,et al.  Postmortem study of deep brain stimulation of the anterior thalamus: case report. , 2008, Neurosurgery.

[21]  G. Baltuch,et al.  Anterior thalamic nucleus stimulation for epilepsy. , 2007, Acta neurochirurgica. Supplement.

[22]  D. McCormick,et al.  Sleep and arousal: thalamocortical mechanisms. , 1997, Annual review of neuroscience.

[23]  Seth Love,et al.  Memory loss resulting from fornix and septal damage: impaired supra-span recall but preserved recognition over a 24-hour delay. , 2008, Neuropsychology.

[24]  J Gotman,et al.  Thalamic nuclei activity in idiopathic generalized epilepsy , 2009, Neurology.

[25]  Clement Hamani,et al.  Neurogenic hippocampal targets of deep brain stimulation , 2011, The Journal of comparative neurology.

[26]  Richard Reilly,et al.  Oscillatory entrainment of thalamic neurons by theta rhythm in freely moving rats. , 2011, Journal of neurophysiology.

[27]  D. McCormick,et al.  On the cellular and network bases of epileptic seizures. , 2001, Annual review of physiology.

[28]  T I Tóth,et al.  The ‘window’ component of the low threshold Ca2+ current produces input signal amplification and bistability in cat and rat thalamocortical neurones , 1997, The Journal of physiology.

[29]  A. Lozano,et al.  Anterior thalamus deep brain stimulation at high current impairs memory in rats , 2010, Experimental Neurology.

[30]  A. Aldenkamp,et al.  Behaviour, cognition and epilepsy , 2005, Acta neurologica Scandinavica. Supplementum.

[31]  Pietro Cortelli,et al.  Familial and sporadic fatal insomnia , 2003, The Lancet Neurology.

[32]  Sung-chul Lim,et al.  Cognitive improvement after long-term electrical stimulation of bilateral anterior thalamic nucleus in refractory epilepsy patients , 2012, Seizure.

[33]  Clement Hamani,et al.  Bilateral Anterior Thalamic Nucleus Lesions and High-frequency Stimulation Are Protective against Pilocarpine-induced Seizures and Status Epilepticus , 2004, Neurosurgery.

[34]  R A Wennberg,et al.  Changes in motor cortex excitability with stimulation of anterior thalamus in epilepsy , 2006, Neurology.

[35]  G. Baltuch,et al.  Deep brain stimulation in the treatment of refractory epilepsy: Update on current data and future directions , 2010, Neurobiology of Disease.

[36]  R. Llinás,et al.  Bursting of thalamic neurons and states of vigilance. , 2006, Journal of neurophysiology.

[37]  H. Y. Chen,et al.  Fatal familial insomnia, a prion disease with a mutation at codon 178 of the prion protein gene. , 1992, The New England journal of medicine.

[38]  Daesoo Kim,et al.  Lack of the Burst Firing of Thalamocortical Relay Neurons and Resistance to Absence Seizures in Mice Lacking α1G T-Type Ca2+ Channels , 2001, Neuron.

[39]  J. Aggleton,et al.  The mammillary bodies: two memory systems in one? , 2004, Nature Reviews Neuroscience.

[40]  Jeffrey S Taube,et al.  Projections to the anterodorsal thalamus and lateral mammillary nuclei arise from different cell populations within the postsubiculum: Implications for the control of head direction cells , 2011, Hippocampus.

[41]  J. Aggleton,et al.  Selective disconnection of the hippocampal formation projections to the mammillary bodies produces only mild deficits on spatial memory tasks: Implications for fornix function , 2011, Hippocampus.

[42]  Demis Hassabis,et al.  Cortical midline involvement in autobiographical memory , 2009, NeuroImage.

[43]  C. Bouras,et al.  Fatal familial insomnia , 1992, Neurology.

[44]  John P. Aggleton,et al.  Understanding retrosplenial amnesia: Insights from animal studies , 2010, Neuropsychologia.

[45]  Tony Wu,et al.  Electrical Stimulation of the Anterior Nucleus of the Thalamus for Intractable Epilepsy: A Long‐term Follow‐up Study , 2007, Epilepsia.

[46]  J. Kril,et al.  Neuroanatomy and Neuropathology Associated with Korsakoff’s Syndrome , 2012, Neuropsychology Review.

[47]  Marek A. Mirski,et al.  Anterior thalamic mediation of generalized pentylenetetrazol seizures , 1986, Brain Research.

[48]  B. Steinhoff,et al.  Clinical findings in sporadic Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease correlate with thalamic pathology. , 2002, Brain : a journal of neurology.

[49]  D. Pinault,et al.  Medium-voltage 5–9-Hz oscillations give rise to spike-and-wave discharges in a genetic model of absence epilepsy: in vivo dual extracellular recording of thalamic relay and reticular neurons , 2001, Neuroscience.

[50]  Jonathan O. Dostrovsky,et al.  Bursting activity of neurons in the human anterior thalamic nucleus , 2006, Brain Research.

[51]  J. T. Erichsen,et al.  Hippocampal–anterior thalamic pathways for memory: uncovering a network of direct and indirect actions , 2010, The European journal of neuroscience.

[52]  David M. Smith,et al.  The anterior thalamus is critical for overcoming interference in a context-dependent odor discrimination task. , 2012, Behavioral neuroscience.

[53]  G. Ojemann,et al.  Effects of lesions in ventral anterior thalamus on experimental focal epilepsy. , 1972, Experimental neurology.

[54]  Jerome Barakos,et al.  Involvement of the thalamocortical network in TLE with and without mesiotemporal sclerosis , 2009, Epilepsia.

[55]  Tatsuya Tanaka,et al.  The Effect of Electrical Stimulation and Lesioning of the Anterior Thalamic Nucleus on Kainic Acid–Induced Focal Cortical Seizure Status in Rats , 2007, Epilepsia.

[56]  J. Aggleton.  Multiple anatomical systems embedded within the primate medial temporal lobe: Implications for hippocampal function , 2012, Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews.

[57]  Jian-Guo Zhang,et al.  Stimulation of the anterior nucleus of the thalamus induces changes in amino acids in the hippocampi of epileptic rats , 2012, Brain Research.

[58]  Brian Litt,et al.  Electrical Stimulation of the Anterior Nucleus of the Thalamus for the Treatment of Intractable Epilepsy , 2004, Epilepsia.

[59]  Mojgan Hodaie,et al.  Chronic Anterior Thalamus Stimulation for Intractable Epilepsy , 2002, Epilepsia.