The nucleus reuniens is a region of the
thalamic midline nuclear group
The midline nuclear group (or midline thalamic nuclei) is a region of the thalamus consisting of the following nuclei:
* Paraventricular thalamus, paraventricular nucleus of thalamus (''nucleus paraventricularis thalami'') - not to be confused wit ...
. In the human brain, it is located in the
interthalamic adhesion (''massa intermedia''). It is also known as the medioventral nucleus.
The nucleus reuniens receives
afferent input from a large number of structures, mainly from
limbic and limbic-associated structures. It sends projections to the medial
prefrontal cortex
In mammalian brain anatomy, the prefrontal cortex (PFC) covers the front part of the frontal lobe of the cerebral cortex. It is the association cortex in the frontal lobe. The PFC contains the Brodmann areas BA8, BA9, BA10, BA11, BA12, ...
, the
hippocampus
The hippocampus (: hippocampi; via Latin from Ancient Greek, Greek , 'seahorse'), also hippocampus proper, is a major component of the brain of humans and many other vertebrates. In the human brain the hippocampus, the dentate gyrus, and the ...
, perirhinal cortex, and
entorhinal cortex
The entorhinal cortex (EC) is an area of the brain's allocortex, located in the medial temporal lobe, whose functions include being a widespread network hub for memory, navigation, and the perception of time.Integrating time from experience in t ...
, although there exist sparse connections to many other afferent structures as well.
The unique medial prefrontal cortex and hippocampal connectivity allows reuniens to regulate neural traffic in this cortical network related to changes in an organism's attentiveness, making reuniens critical to
associative learning, memory retrieval, memory generalization,
spatial route planning, and resilience to stress.
References
Thalamic nuclei
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