The medial forebrain bundle of the rat. I. General introduction.

This paper is the first of a projected series of studies on the structure and composition of the medial forebrain bundle (MFB) of the rat and the relations of this fiber system to its bed nucleus, the lateral hypothalamic area. The first part of the paper comprises an extensive review of literature on the MFB from its discovery by Ganser in 1882 to the present. This review serves as the basis for an evaluation of our present-day knowledge of the organization of the MFB, which is presented in the second part of this paper. Despite the wealth of information available on the origins and sites of termination of the axons that constitute the MFB, surprisingly little attention has been given to the bundle itself, to its topographic boundaries, its fiber composition, or to the spatial arrangement of its constituent components. These features of the MFB as it extends through the lateral preoptic and lateral hypothalamic areas have been analyzed in normal Klüver-Barrera- and Bodian-stained material. From this analysis, a detailed atlas of the MFB and some of the surrounding structures has been prepared. This atlas, which forms the third section of this paper, illustrates the appearance and organization of the MFB at ten equidistant levels through the lateral preoptic and lateral hypothalamic continuum.