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A lacertilian dorsal retinorecipient thalamus: a re-investigation in the old-world lizard Podarcis hispanica.

The aim of this work is to delineate the retinorecipient cell groups of the dorsal thalamus of lizards and to study some of the differential connections in order to help to understand the evolution of the visual system in tetrapods. Tract-tracing and immunohistochemical techniques were applied to the retinorecipient dorsal thalamus of the lizard Podarcis hispanica. The retina of Podarcis projects to four areas of the dorsal thalamus: nucleus ovalis (Ov), intergeniculate leaflet (IGL), dorsal lateral geniculate nucleus (GLD) and dorsolateral anterior nucleus (DLA). Nucleus ovalis shows a clear cell plate/neuropile organization and projects to the ventral thalamus. Thus, it seems to belong to the ventral rather than to the dorsal thalamus. The IGL contains large cells reactive for GABA and/or NPY immunohistochemistry. It is interconnected with the supra/retrochiasmatic hypothalamus and projects to the opposite thalamus and to the ipsilateral tectum. The caudal DLA, which lacks both GABA- and NPY-like immunoreactive cells, is reached by a few thin retinal fibers, although distal dendrites of DLA cells enter the GLD, suggesting an important retinal input. The DLA projects to the medial and dorsal telencephalic cortices. The GLD is the main retinorecipient thalamic structure that projects to the telencephalon. It shows a crude laminar organization in which cell plate neurons project to the ipsilateral pallial thickening, but it does not receive a descending projection from the visual telencephalon and thus differs from the GLD of other amniotic vertebrates. In the context of present knowledge, these results suggest that an IGL homologue is present in all tetrapods studied, whereas Ov seems to be restricted to diapsid vertebrates. Moreover, our data suggest that a unimodal visual projection to the telencephalon (arising from the GLD) first appeared in reptiles by segregation from a limbic (multimodal) thalamo-telencephalic pathway.