Organization of the Sensory Input to the Telencephalon in the Fire-Bellied Toad, Bombina orientalis.
The functional organization of sensory activity in the amphibian telencephalon is poorly
understood. We used an in vitro brain preparation to compare the anatomy of afferent
pathways with the localization of electrically evoked sensory potentials and single neuron
intracellular responses in the telencephalon of the toad Bombina orientalis. Anatomical
tracing showed that the anterior thalamic nucleus innervates the anterior parts of the
medial, dorsal, and lateral pallia and the rostralmost part of the pallium in addition to the
subpallial amygdala/ventral pallidum region. Additional afferents to the medial telencephalon
originate from the thalamic eminence. Electrical stimulation of diverse sensory nerves
and brain regions generated evoked potentials with distinct characteristics in the pallium,
subpallial amygdala/ventral pallidum, and dorsal striatopallidum. In the pallium, this sensory
activity is generated in the anterior medial region. In the case of olfaction, evoked
potentials were recorded at all sites, but displayed different characteristics across telencephalic
regions. Stimulation of the anterior dorsal thalamus generated a pattern of activity
comparable to olfactory evoked potentials, but it became similar to stimulation of the optic
nerve or brainstem after bilateral lesion of the lateral olfactory tract, which interrupted the
antidromic activation of the olfactohabenular tract. Intracellular bimodal sensory responses
were obtained in the anterior pallium, medial amygdala, ventral pallidum, and dorsal
striatopallidum. Our results demonstrate that the amphibian anterior pallium, medial
amygdala/ventral pallidum, and dorsal striatopallidum are multimodal sensory centers. The
organization of the amphibian telencephalon displays striking similarities with the brain
pathways recently implicated in mammalian goal-directed behavior.