Dr. Fred Clary's Functional Analysis Chiropractic Technique

A consideration of the complexity of thalamic cell and circuit properties puts a lie to the old notion that thalamus represents a simple, machine-like relay of information to cortex. We can now be certain of two major concepts to replace this. The first is that the thalamus represents a last bottleneck of information flow, providing a convenient substrate to influence that flow. This is achieved by the many modulatory pathways that innervate relay cells to influence relay function in numerous ways. One detailed above is the burst/tonic transition in the firing mode of relay cells, but this is just the tip of the iceberg. We need much more information about the many ways thalamic circuitry controls information flow to cortex.

The second point is that the role of thalamus is not limited to getting information to cortex in the first place, which is the role of first order relays, but also continues to function in the higher order cortico-thalamo-cortical pathways, thereby providing an essential, ongoing function for cortical processing. This dramatically alters long-standing views of cortical processing, and we need to know much more about the different roles of cortico-thalamo-cortical versus direct corticocortical pathways in cortical functioning.

# posted by Fred Clary, Chiropractor @ 5:43 PM