The Hypothalamic Distribution of the Stria Terminalis in the Rat

Abstract

Despite numerous painstaking studies of normal brain material, and a considerable amount of experimental work by the use of anterograde degeneration methods, the hypothalamic distribution of the stria terminalis has remained a controversial subject. In their fundamental descriptive studies, Johnston¹⁸, Berkelbach van der Sprenkel³, Gurdjian¹², Humphrey¹⁶ and others could identify two major contingents of amygdalo-hypothalamic stria fibers (Johnston’s fourth and second subdivisions, synonymous with, respectively, the precommissural or supracommissural, and preoptic or postcommissural stria components of later workers), but the generally small fiber caliber precluded an accurate tracing of these fiber groups through the intricate hypothalamic fiber plexus. Even Cajal’s⁵ Golgi studies led no farther than the statement (Vol. II, p. 723) that the stria (‘voie de projection de l’écorce temporale’) distributes itself to the ventral hypothalamic region (‘région sous-thalamique la plus inférieure’) where its axons ramify in the suprachiasmatic region in an elongated cell territory ventral and caudal to the anterior commissure, the ‘noyau interstitiel de la voie de projection de l’écorce temporale’. Elsewhere (Vol. II, p. 479), Cajal suggests the ‘noyaux supérieur ou postérieur du tuber’ (probably the dorsomedial nucleus and the ventral premammillary nucleus) as likely sites of stria fiber termination.