Visual and auditory association areas of the cat's posterior ectosylvian gyrus: thalamic afferents

Abstract

The feline posterior ectosylvian gyrus contains a broad band of association cortex that is bounded anteriorly by tonotopic auditory areas and posteriorly by retinotopic visual areas. To characterize the possible functions of this cortex and to throw light on its pattern of internal divisions, we have carried out an analysis of its thalamic afferents. Deposits of differentiable retrograde tracers were placed at 17 cortical sites in nine cats. The deposit sites spanned the crown of the posterior ectosylvian gyrus and adjacent cortex in the suprasylvian sulcus. We compiled counts of retrogradely labeled neurons in 12 thalamic nuclei delineated by use of Nissl and acetylcholinesterase stains. We then employed a statistical clustering algorithm to identify groups of injections that gave rise to similar patterns of thalamic labeling. The results suggest that the posterior ectosylvian gyrus contains 3 fundamentally different cortical districts that have the form of parallel vertical bands. Very anterior cortex, overlapping previously identified tonotopic auditory areas (AI, P and VP) receives a dense projection from the laminated division of the medial geniculate body (MGl). An intermediate strip, to which we refer as the auditory belt, is innervated by axons from nontonotopic divisions of the medial geniculate body (MGds, MGvl, MGm, and MGd), from the lateral division of the posterior group (Pol), and from the posterior suprageniculate nucleus (SGp). A posterior strip, to which we refer as EPp, receives strong projections from the LM-SG complex (LM-SGa and LMp), and lighter projections from the intralaminar and lateroposterior (LPm and LPl) nuclei. On grounds of thalamic connectivity, EPp is not obviously distinguishable from adjacent retinotopic visual areas (PLLS, DLS, and VLS), and may be regarded as forming, together with these areas, a connectionally homogeneous visual belt.