The role of the diencephalon in the guidance of thalamocortical axons in mice.

ABSTRACT: Thalamocortical axons (TCAs) cross several tissues on their journey to the cortex. Mechanisms must be in place along the route to ensure they connect with their targets in an orderly fashion. The ventral telencephalon acts as an instructive tissue, but the importance of the diencephalon in TCA mapping is unknown. We report that disruption of diencephalic development by Pax6 deletion results in a thalamocortical projection containing mapping errors. We used conditional mutagenesis to test whether these errors are due to the disruption of pioneer projections from prethalamus to thalamus and found that, although this correlates with abnormal TCA fasciculation, it does not induce topographical errors. To test whether the thalamus contains navigational cues for TCAs, we used slice culture trans

SUBMITTER: Quintana-Urzainqui I 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7327999 | biostudies-literature | 2020 Jun

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature