Medial auditory thalamic stimulation as a conditioned stimulus for eyeblink conditioning in rats

The neural pathways that convey conditioned stimulus (CS) information to the cerebellum during eyeblink conditioning have not been fully delineated. It is well established that pontine mossy fiber inputs to the cerebellum convey CS-related stimulation for different sensory modalities (e.g., auditory, visual, tactile). Less is known about the sources of sensory input to the pons that are important for eyeblink conditioning. The first experiment of the current study was designed to determine whether electrical stimulation of the medial auditory thalamic nuclei is a sufficient CS for establishing eyeblink conditioning in rats. The second experiment used anterograde and retrograde tract tracing techniques to assess neuroanatomical connections between the medial auditory thalamus and pontine nuclei. Stimulation of the medial auditory thalamus was a very effective CS for eyeblink conditioning in rats, and the medial auditory thalamus has direct ipsilateral projections to the pontine nuclei. The results suggest that the medial auditory thalamic nuclei and their projections to the pontine nuclei are components of the auditory CS pathway in eyeblink conditioning.