Assessing Topographic Structural Connectivity of the Human Basal Ganglia and Thalamus

Irtiza A. Gilani; Kader K. Oguz; Huseyin Boyaci; Katja Doerschner

Connections between SNr and rostral and caudal intralaminar thalamic nuclei [Ilinsky et al., 1985; Mailly et al., 2001] , and the nigro-intralaminar thalamic projection ending in the PF area [Smith et al., 2000] also exist. Connections from SN to thalamic nuclei, such as the medio-dorsal nucleus (MD), ventrocaudal nucleus (Vc), latero-polar nucleus (Lpo) and ventro-oral anterior nucleus (Voa) were demonstrated in [Lenglet et al., 2012] . Our results are in agreement with such previous findings as strong connectivity strength of SNc-Tha pathways is evident in Supplemental Figure 5 and the similar pattern for SNr-Tha connections can be seen in Supplemetal Figure 6 . Our results demonstrate that central SNr is well connected to the BA 4 and BA 3,1,2 areas; and the inferior and posterior SNc are well-connected to these cortical regions.