Mapping the primate thalamus: systematic approach to analyze the distribution of subcortical neuromodulatory afferents

Neuromodulatory afferents to thalamic nuclei are key for information transmission and thus play critical roles in sensory, motor, and limbic processes. Over the course of the last decades, diverse attempts have been made to map and describe subcortical neuromodulatory afferents to the primate thalamus, including axons using acetylcholine, serotonin, dopamine, noradrenaline, adrenaline, and histamine. Our group has been actively involved in this endeavor. The published descriptions on neuromodulatory afferents to the primate thalamus have been made in different laboratories and are not fully comparable due to methodological divergences (for example, fixation procedures, planes of cutting, techniques used to detect the afferents, different criteria for identification of thalamic nuclei…). Such variation affects the results obtained. Therefore, systematic methodological and analytical approaches are much needed. The present article proposes reproducible methodological and terminological frameworks for primate thalamic mapping. We suggest the use of standard stereotaxic planes to produce and present maps of the primate thalamus, as well as the use of the Anglo-American school terminology (vs. the German school terminology) for identification of thalamic nuclei. Finally, a public repository of the data collected under agreed-on frameworks would be a useful tool for looking up and comparing data on the structure and connections of primate thalamic nuclei. Important and agreed-on efforts are required to create, manage, and fund a unified and homogeneous resource of data on the primate thalamus. Likewise, a firm commitment of the institutions to preserve experimental brain material is much needed because neuroscience work with non-human primates is becoming increasingly rare, making earlier material still more valuableOpen Access funding provided thanks to the CRUE-CSIC agreement with Springer Nature. CC and IP-S were the recipients of grants from Chair in Neuroscience UAM-Fundación Tatiana Pérez de Guzmán el Bueno, Spain. MAG-C was the recipient of a Beatriz Galindo senior research position in the School of Medicine, Universidad Autónoma de Madrid (BEAGAL18/00098) and of a Grant for I+D Projects to the Beatriz Galindo Program Researchers at Universidad Autónoma de Madrid (SI2/PBG/2020–00014) from the Madrid Government (Comunidad de Madrid-Spain) under the Multiannual Agreement with Universidad Autónoma de Madrid in the line of action encouraging young research doctors, in the context of the V PRICIT (Regional Programme of Research and Technological Innovation