Regional properties of dorsal and ventral hippocampus in suppression of intralaminar thalamic unit responses.

Abstract

AbstractIn chloralose‐anesthetized. Flaxedil‐paralyzed cats, the suppression of extralemniscal thalamic units by the dorsal and ventral hippocampus was investigated. Unitary responses to test somatic stimuli, recorded in centrolateral and neighboring thalamic nuclei, were interacted with conditioning electrical stimulation in different regions around the hippocampal arch, including the parahippocampal gyrus (entorhinal and retrosplenial areas).Stimulation of dorsal (DHC) and ventral (VHC) hippocampus suppressed roughly equal proportions of responses. However, within each of DHC and VHC, effectiveness depended on the region stimulated. In DHC, Fields CA1 and CA3, subiculum (SUB), and retrosplenial area, but not field CA4 with dentate gyrus (FD), while stimulation of CA1 or subiculum was almost ineffective at currents below 1.0 mA. In VHC the regions were ranked for effectiveness as follows: entorhinal cortex = CA3 > FD >SUB >CAI.No topographic relationship was found between hippocampal region and thalamic loci for unit suppression. Lemniscal‐type unit responses in ventrobasal thalamus were unaffected by stimulation of the hippocampus or parahippocampal gyrus.Interruption of the fornix‐fimbria system prevented suppression elicited from CA1 of DHC or from CA3 of VHC, but not from FD of VHC. It had no effect on suppression elicited from retrosplenial or entorhinal cortex.Hippocampal regional variation of effectiveness in suppressing extralemniscal pathways may contribute to the differential behavioral involvements reported for different hippocampal structures.