Afferent and efferent connections of the dorsolateral corticoid area and a comparison with connections of the temporo‐parieto‐occipital area in the pigeon (Columba livia)

The dorsolateral corticoid area (CDL) in the pigeon telencephalon is a thin, superficial part of the caudal pallium adjoining the medially situated hippocampal formation. To determine the connectivity of CDL, and to distinguish CDL from the rostrally adjacent temporo‐parieto‐occipital area (TPO), injections of neural tracers were made into the caudal superficial pallium at various rostrocaudal levels. The results showed that injections caudal to A 6.75 (Karten and Hodos [ 1967 ] Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press) gave rise to reciprocal connections with subdivisions of the hippocampal formation, TPO, piriform cortex, posterior pallial amygdala, caudoventral nidopallium, densocellular part of the hyperpallium, lateral hyperpallium, frontolateral nidopallium, and lateral intermediate nidopallium. Of these, the hippocampal formation showed very strong connectivity with CDL, and projection fibers from CDL clearly separated the dorsomedial region of the hippocampal formation into lateral and medial portions. CDL projected directly to the olfactory bulb, but did not receive projections from it. In the diencephalon, CDL received efferents from a dorsal region of the medial part of the anterior dorsolateral nucleus of the thalamus, subrotundal nucleus, and internal paramedian nucleus of the thalamus. These findings suggest that CDL in the pigeon belongs to the limbic pallium and that in some respects it may be comparable to the mammalian cingulate cortex. In contrast, injections of tracers into the pallial surface at or rostral to A 7.00 showed marked differences in the pattern of both anterograde and retrograde labeling from that resulting from injections caudal to A 6.50, thereby indicating the approximate level of transition from CDL to TPO. J. Comp. Neurol. 485:165–182, 2005. © 2005 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.