Pulvinar Complex: Relay Center or Something More

Abstract

The pulvinar is a collection of thalamic nuclei which is often
considered mainly with visual processing and attention. The
unique thing about this thalamic brain area is that, in phylogeny,
this area is considered to be much more advanced in primates and
virtually absent in rodents1, making it an important brain area to
understand in human brain evolution. This editorial aims to shed
light on the structure and function of the pulvinar.

The pulvinar that is described in this article mainly
represents the pulvinar of primates including humans as they are
much more defined and developed compared with lesser species.
Based on the cyto- and myeloarchitecture, the pulvinar can be
divided into medial, lateral, inferior and the more anterior oral
pulvinar2. This classification, however, is purely anatomical and
controversial and does not represent the functional classification
of the nuclei. It is still unclear as to how many nuclei there are in
the various divisions of the pulvinar. The majority of visual zones
within the pulvinar for e.g. are found in the lateral and the inferior
zones.