Evidence map›Paper›PMID 39060240›Full record

ArticleNature communications2024

A transthalamic pathway crucial for perception.

Christina Mo, Claire McKinnon, S Murray Sherman

Abstract read
In one paragraph

Article in Nature communications, 2024. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 17 papers.

0numbers the graph read from it
0cells of the map it votes in
17citing papers in PubMed
–field-weighted citation impact
1 · What the graph read from it

What it found

Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.

The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.

2 · The registry

The trial behind it

Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.

Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.

3 · Its place in the literature

Who cites it

17 citing papers in PubMed.

  1. Article
  2. Review
  3. Region- and Layer-Specific Glutamatergic Synapse Development in the Nascent Cortical Hierarchy.The Journal of neuroscience : the official journal of the Society for Neuroscience · 2026
    Article
  4. Article
  5. Neural correlates of perceptual decision-making in the primary somatosensory cortex.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2026
    Article
  6. Review
  7. Article
  8. Modulation and Gating of Transthalamic and Subcortical Pathways through Somatosensory Thalamus.The Journal of neuroscience : the official journal of the Society for Neuroscience · 2026
    Article
  9. Review
  10. Article
  11. Pathway-Specific Ultrastructure of Thalamocortical Synapses in Mouse Somatosensory Area S2.The Journal of neuroscience : the official journal of the Society for Neuroscience · 2025
    Article
  12. Article
  13. Article
  14. Article
  15. Article
  16. Beyond Barrels: Diverse Thalamocortical Projection Motifs in the Mouse Ventral Posterior Complex.The Journal of neuroscience : the official journal of the Society for Neuroscience · 2024
    Article
  17. Transthalamic Pathways for Cortical Function.The Journal of neuroscience : the official journal of the Society for Neuroscience · 2024
    Review
4 · The record

Corrections and comments

5 · Who and what money

Authors and funding

3 authors.

Christina MoThe Florey Institute of Neuroscience and Mental Health, University of Melbourne, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. christina.mo@florey.edu.au.ORCID 0000-0001-6725-7239
Claire McKinnonDepartment of Neurobiology, University of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois, USA.
S Murray ShermanDepartment of Neurobiology, University of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois, USA. msherman@bsd.uchicago.edu.ORCID 0000-0002-1520-2778

Funding

Thalamocortical interactionsR01NS094184 · NINDS · UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO · PI Jason Neil MacLean, S. Murray SHERMAN · 2016 to 2026
$4.6M
Direct and Transthalamic Pathways between Primary and Secondary Visual CortexF31EY031965 · NEI · UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO · PI MCKINNON, CLAIRE J · 2020 to 2021
$92k
NEI NIH HHS F31 EY031965NINDS NIH HHS R01 NS094184U.S. Department of Health & Human Services | NIH | National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS) R01NS094184
6 · The paper itself

Abstract

Perception is largely supported by cortical processing that involves communication among multiple areas, typically starting with primary sensory cortex and then involving higher order cortices. This communication is served in part by transthalamic (cortico-thalamo-cortical) pathways, which ubiquitously parallel direct corticocortical pathways, but their role in sensory processing has largely remained unexplored. Here, we suggest that transthalamic processing propagates task-relevant information required for correct sensory decisions. Using optogenetics, we specifically inhibited the pathway at its synapse in higher order somatosensory thalamus of mice performing a texture-based discrimination task. We concurrently monitored the cellular effects of inhibition in primary or secondary cortex using two-photon calcium imaging. Inhibition severely impaired performance despite intact direct corticocortical projections, thus challenging the purely corticocentric map of perception. Interestingly, the inhibition did not reduce overall cell responsiveness to texture stimulation in somatosensory cortex, but rather disrupted the texture selectivity of cells, a discriminability that develops over task learning. This discriminability was more disrupted in the secondary than primary somatosensory cortex, emphasizing the feedforward influence of the transthalamic route. Transthalamic pathways may therefore act to deliver performance-relevant information to higher order cortex and are underappreciated hierarchical pathways in perceptual decision-making.

Indexed as

OptogeneticsSomatosensory CortexThalamusAnimalsFemaleMaleMiceMice, Inbred C57BLNeural PathwaysPerception

Identifiers

PMID39060240
PMCPMC11282105

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Registered trials

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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.