Toward an Integrative Theory of Thalamic Function

The thalamus has long been suspected to have an important role in cognition, yet recent theories have favored a more corticocentric view. According to this view, the thalamus is an excitatory feedforward relay to or between cortical regions, and cognitively relevant computations are exclusively cort...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Annual review of neuroscience 2018-07, Vol.41 (1), p.163-183
Main Authors: Rikhye, Rajeev V, Wimmer, Ralf D, Halassa, Michael M
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
brain development
cognition
Cognition & reasoning
Cognitive ability
Cognitive development
Cortex
cortical microcircuits
Developmental psychology
neocortex
predictive coding
Predictive control
Thalamus
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Summary:The thalamus has long been suspected to have an important role in cognition, yet recent theories have favored a more corticocentric view. According to this view, the thalamus is an excitatory feedforward relay to or between cortical regions, and cognitively relevant computations are exclusively cortical. Here, we review anatomical, physiological, and behavioral studies along evolutionary and theoretical dimensions, arguing for essential and unique thalamic computations in cognition. Considering their architectural features as well as their ability to initiate, sustain, and switch cortical activity, thalamic circuits appear uniquely suited for computing contextual signals that rapidly reconfigure task-relevant cortical representations. We introduce a framework that formalizes this notion, show its consistency with several findings, and discuss its prediction of thalamic roles in perceptual inference and behavioral flexibility. Overall, our framework emphasizes an expanded view of the thalamus in cognitive computations and provides a roadmap to test several of its theoretical and experimental predictions.
ISSN:0147-006X
1545-4126
DOI:10.1146/annurev-neuro-080317-062144