Brain Research, 123 (1977) 197-207
© Elsevier/North-Holland Biomedical Press, Amsterdam - Printed in The Netherlands
197
Research Reports
HETEROGENEOUS AFFERENTS TO THE INFERIOR PARIETAL LOBULE
OF THE RHESUS MONKEY REVEALED BY THE RETROGRADE TRANS-
PORT METHOD
I. DIVAC*, J. H. LaVAIL**, P. RAKIC and K. R. WINSTON
Department of Neuropathology, Harvard Medical School, and Department of Neuroscience, Children's
Hospital Medical Center, Boston, Mass. 02115 (U.S.A.)
(Accepted July 14th, 1976)
SUMMARY
The sources of afferent connections to the inferior parietal lobule (rostral part
of the area 7 of Brodmann; PF and rostral part of PG ofvon Bonin and Bailey) were
examined with the retrograde transport method in infant and adult rhesus monkeys.
Two to 3 days after injections of horseradish peroxidase (HRP) into the cortex, the
animals were anesthetized, and the brains fixed and processed for the histochemical
demonstration of the enzyme marker. Labeled neurons were found in layer III in
the ipsilateral prefrontal, parietal, occipital and temporal cortices, notably in areas 5,
19, 22 and 46 of Brodmann, and in area 7 of the contralateral parietal cortex. In the
thalamus, HRP-positive cells were located ipsilaterally in the medial pulvinar nucleus
in the nuclei centrum medianum and parafascicularis, as well as in the rostral thalamus,
lateral and medial to the mammillothalamic tract, in the nucleus ventralis anterior and
nucleus paracentralis. Numerous labeled cells were also identified in the magnocellular
nuclei of the basal forebrain, in the dorsal and medial raphe nuclei, and in the locus
coeruleus. Most of the cells in these regions were located in the hemisphere ipsilateral
to the injections, but a number of them were also found in the contralateral hemisphere.
In adult monkeys, brownish granules in the cytoplasm of some cells were interpreted
as endogenous pigment or due to various pigment precursors. However, all 14 locations
listed above were identified in the infant monkey in which endogenous pigment was
not a confounding factor.
* Current address: Institute of Neurophysiology, Copenhagen, Denmark.
** Current address: Department of Anatomy, University of California, San Francisco, Calif., U.S.A.