Nucleus reuniens of the thalamus contains head direction cells.

Jankowski, Maciej M; Islam, Md Nurul; Wright, Nicholas F; Vann, Seralynne D; Erichsen, Jonathan T; Aggleton, John P; O'Mara, Shane M · Elife · 2014

basic_science · Level V

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Abstract

Discrete populations of brain cells signal heading direction, rather like a compass. These 'head direction' cells are largely confined to a closely-connected network of sites. We describe, for the first time, a population of head direction cells in nucleus reuniens of the thalamus in the freely-moving rat. This novel subcortical head direction signal potentially modulates the hippocampal CA fields directly and, thus, informs spatial processing and memory.

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