Interaction of laminae of the cingulate cortex with the anteroventral thalamus during behavioral learning.

Neurons in deep laminae of the rabbit cingulate cortex develop discriminative activity at an early stage of behavioral discrimination learning, whereas neurons in the anteroventral nucleus of thalamus and neurons in the superficial cortical laminae develop such activity in a late stage of behavioral learning. It is hypothesized that early-forming discriminative neuronal activity, relayed to anteroventral neurons via the corticothalamic pathway, contributes to the construction of changes underlying the late-forming neuronal discrimination in the anteroventral nucleus. The resultant late discriminative activity in the anteroventral nucleus is then relayed via the thalamocortical pathway back to the superficial cortical laminae, promoting disengagement of cortex from further task-processing.