What Goes on in the Motor Thalamus?

Abstract

Physiological observations made in man offer a unique opportunity to understand the motor thalamus. On the one hand, the patient can describe what he feels when a site is stimulated; on the other, one can observe any induced motor effect, both in ''normal'' patients and in those with movement disorders. Finally, all this can be correlated with Single unit recordings at the same site. Data has been correlated relative to the motor thalamus from over 10,000 macrostimulation sites and from 114 patients undergoing microstimulation and microrecording, in an attempt to understand something of the function of this part of the brain.

Optimal location of thalamotomy lesions for tremor associated with Parkinson disease: a probabilistic analysis based on postoperative magnetic resonance imaging and an integrated digital atlas

“…10,12,42,55,65 Although thalamic kinesthetic response cells and tremor cells are consistently located rostral to the tactile responsive zone, the extent to which tremor-evoked kinesthetic cells occupy the Vim (VLp) or the Vc (VP) in the human thalamus remains controversial. 9,24,31,38,55,79,98 In the present anatomical study we localized effective lesions mainly to the Vim (VLp) and the most rostral portion of the Vc (VPLa). Interestingly, all lesions also involved thalamic territories anterior to the Vim (VLp), areas comprising the Vop (VLa) and even the Voa (VLa).…”

Stereotactic Surgery –T he Past and the Future

“…During that decade, it was incorporated by many authors as a part of stereotactic procedures to define the borders of anatomical structures and targets [43][44][45]. Since then, the science of microelectrode recording has advanced to the point where many consider it a routine technique in stereotactic functional neurosurgery [46][47][48], especially to confirm placement of the lesion in Vim [36,47,49,50] or the globus pallidus [51][52][53].…”