Ventral Lateral Group (Dorsal Part)

Anatomy

• The atlas defines this group by clustering diffusion MRI orientation information; it is named after the classic nuclei, but its borders do not match histological nuclei one to one.
• The ventral lateral nucleus receives input from the cerebellum (dentate) and the globus pallidus and relays it to motor cortex.

Functions

• Relay of cerebellar and basal ganglia input to motor cortex; coordination of movement.

Clinical

• The VIM nucleus in the ventral lateral region is the target of deep brain stimulation and focused ultrasound in essential tremor (adults).

Treatment

This region from the perspective of medication, psychotherapy and neuromodulation. Letter badges are evidence levels.

• MRI-guided focused ultrasound thalamotomy targeting the ventral thalamus (VIM) in essential tremor: in 76 patients, hand tremor fell markedly at 3 months compared with a sham procedure (Elias et al., 2016); incisionless and unilateral. An alternative to deep brain stimulation. Adults. A

In the model

How this structure is defined in the 3D model, and the data source.

Najdenovska et al. (2018) thalamic nuclei atlas (diffusion MRI clustering; ICBM 2009a symmetric template). Each voxel of the CerebrA thalamus was assigned to the most probable nucleus in these probability maps; because the atlas thalamus is about 20% larger than CerebrA’s, the borders were fitted to the shell (overlap of the two thalami: Dice 0.86–0.89).

References

Full citations for the card; links go to the paper (DOI) or a PubMed search.

1. Elias WJ et al. A randomized trial of focused ultrasound thalamotomy for essential tremor. N Engl J Med 2016;375(8):730–739. Search PubMed