Anatomical connections of the primate pretectal nucleus of the optic tract.

The pretectal nucleus of the optic tract (NOT) plays an essential role in optokinetic nystagmus, the reflexive movements of the eyes to motion of the entire visual scene. To determine how the NOT can influence structures that move the eyes, we injected it with lectin-conjugated horseradish peroxidase and characterized its afferent and efferent connections. The NOT sent its heaviest projection to the caudal half of the ipsilateral dorsal cap of Kooy in the inferior olive. The rostral dorsal cap was free of labeling. The NOT sent lighter, but consistent, projections to other visual and oculomotor-related areas including, from rostral to caudal, the ipsilateral pregeniculate nucleus, the contralateral NOT, the lateral and medial terminal nuclei of the accessory optic system bilaterally, the ipsilateral dorsolateral pontine nucleus, the ipsilateral nucleus prepositus hypoglossi, and the ipsilateral medial vestibular nucleus. The NOT received input from the contralateral NOT, the lateral terminal nuclei bilaterally, and the ipsilateral pregeniculate nucleus. Although our injections involved the pretectal olivary nucleus (PON), there was neither orthograde nor retrograde labeling in the contralateral PON. Our results indicate that the NOT can influence brainstem preoculomotor pathways both directly through the medial vestibular nucleus and nucleus prepositus hypoglossi and indirectly through both climbing and mossy fiber pathways to the cerebellar flocculus. In addition, the NOT communicates strongly with other retino-recipient zones, whose neurons are driven by either horizontal (contralateral NOT) or vertical (medial and lateral terminal nuclei) fullfield image motion.