ArticleNature2017
Thalamic amplification of cortical connectivity sustains attentional control.
Article in Nature, 2017. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 356 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
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Who cites it
356 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.
- Structural Volumetric Alterations in Parkinson's Disease With Mild Cognitive Impairment.Brain and behavior · 2026Pooled it
- Decreased Thalamic Activity Is a Correlate for Disconnectedness during Anesthesia with Propofol, Dexmedetomidine and Sevoflurane But Not S-Ketamine.The Journal of neuroscience : the official journal of the Society for Neuroscience · 2023Trial
- Lonesome No More: The Associative Thalamus and the Feeling of Being Alone.Biological psychiatry global open science · 2026Article
- Synthetic cannabinoid-induced changes in thalamo-prefrontal gamma synchrony and thalamic high-voltage spindles.Psychopharmacology · 2026Article
- Thalamofrontal synaptic weakening underlies short-term memory deficits from adolescent NMDAR hypofunction.Science advances · 2026Article
- Article
- Thalamocortical orchestration of human theory of mind.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2026Article
- Control of associative learning by the mediodorsal thalamus-orbitofrontal cortex circuit.Nature communications · 2026Article
- Anterior cingulate cortex monitors action state and action content in complex associative learning.eLife · 2026Article
- Aberrant prefrontal activity and arousal level correlate with action initiation and response vigor in rats.iScience · 2026Article
- Neural synchrony between prefrontal and visual cortex supports visual working memory.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2026Article
- Electrophysiological Brain Connectivity and Subjective States Evoked by Electrical Stimulation of the Human Mid-thalamus.The Journal of neuroscience : the official journal of the Society for Neuroscience · 2026Article
- Thalamic nuclei volumes across psychiatric and neurological disorders: a multi-site magnetic resonance imaging study.Translational psychiatry · 2026Article
- Reduced mediodorsal thalamus activity underlies aberrant belief dynamics in a genetic mouse model of schizophrenia.Nature neuroscience · 2026Article
- The role of transthalamic pathways in perception.Communications biology · 2026Review
- High-Resolution Diffusion Tensor Imaging of the Cerebellum and Brainstem in Chiari Malformation Type I: Association with Function and Pain.Cerebellum (London, England) · 2026Article
- Neurovascular coupling dysfunction of the frontal‒thalamic circuit in postconcussion syndrome.Brain imaging and behavior · 2026Article
- Aperiodic and periodic neural activity during sleep in autism spectrum disorders.BMC medicine · 2026Article
- Distinct mediodorsal-prefrontal loops differentially encode reward-predictive cues.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2026Article
- Cell-type-specific sustained value representations in the claustrum.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2026Article
296 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
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6 authors.
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Abstract
Although interactions between the thalamus and cortex are critical for cognitive function, the exact contribution of the thalamus to these interactions remains unclear. Recent studies have shown diverse connectivity patterns across the thalamus, but whether this diversity translates to thalamic functions beyond relaying information to or between cortical regions is unknown. Here we show, by investigating the representation of two rules used to guide attention in the mouse prefrontal cortex (PFC), that the mediodorsal thalamus sustains these representations without relaying categorical information. Specifically, mediodorsal input amplifies local PFC connectivity, enabling rule-specific neural sequences to emerge and thereby maintain rule representations. Consistent with this notion, broadly enhancing PFC excitability diminishes rule specificity and behavioural performance, whereas enhancing mediodorsal excitability improves both. Overall, our results define a previously unknown principle in neuroscience; thalamic control of functional cortical connectivity. This function, which is dissociable from categorical information relay, indicates that the thalamus has a much broader role in cognition than previously thought.
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Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.