Abstract
The brain continuously receives diverse information about the external environment and changes in the homeostatic state. The attribution of salience determines which stimuli capture attention and, therefore, plays an essential role in regulating emotions and guiding behaviors. Although the thalamus is included in the salience network, the neural mechanism of how the thalamus contributes to salience processing remains elusive. In this mini-review, we will focus on recent advances in understanding the specific roles of distinct thalamic nuclei in salience processing. We will summarize the functional connections between thalamus nuclei and other key nodes in the salience network. We will highlight the convergence of neural circuits involved in reward and pain processing, arousal, and attention control in thalamic structures. We will discuss how thalamic activities represent salience information in associative learning and how thalamic neurons modulate adaptive behaviors. Lastly, we will review recent studies which investigate the contribution of thalamic dysfunction to aberrant salience processing in neuropsychiatric disorders, such as drug addiction, posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), and schizophrenia. Based on emerging evidence from both human and rodent research, we propose that the thalamus, different from previous studies that as an information relay, has a broader role in coordinating the cognitive process and regulating emotions.
Highlights
Complex sensory inputs about the external world and constant update of the internal state are fed into our neural system at every moment
A variety of neuroimaging studies have revealed the cortical nodes of the salience network, the dorsal anterior cingulate cortex, and anterior insula (AI)
Subcortical structures including the thalamus, the striatum, and the midbrain dopamine nuclei, which cooperate with the cortical nodes in cognitive control, contribute to salience processing (Menon, 2011; Yeo et al, 2011; Wolff and Vann, 2019)
Summary
Kuikui Zhou1†, Lin Zhu2†, Guoqiang Hou1†, Xueyu Chen, Bo Chen, Chuanzhong Yang2* and Yingjie Zhu1*. The thalamus is included in the salience network, the neural mechanism of how the thalamus contributes to salience processing remains elusive. In this mini-review, we will focus on recent advances in understanding the specific roles of distinct thalamic nuclei in salience processing. We will review recent studies which investigate the contribution of thalamic dysfunction to aberrant salience processing in neuropsychiatric disorders, such as drug addiction, posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), and schizophrenia. Based on emerging evidence from both human and rodent research, we propose that the thalamus, different from previous studies that as an information relay, has a broader role in coordinating the cognitive process and regulating emotions
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