Retinal projections to the pregeniculate nucleus in the hemispherectomized monkey.

Intraocular injections of tritiated proline were used to test the hypothesis that unilateral removal of all visual cortical areas results in increased distribution of retinal terminals in the pregeniculate nucleus (PGN) of the thalamus in monkeys. Following hemispherectomy, retinal input to the ipsilateral PGN was reduced by an average of 18.5% when compared to its contralateral homologue, which corresponded to the reduction in nuclear volume (19.3%). Our results show that removal of cortical afferents to the external layer of the PGN does not induce invasion of retinal projections into this region of the nucleus.