Talk:Thalamus

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Three meanings of "stratum zonale".

Can anyone confirm that there are three definitions (at least) of "stratum zonale"? I've found these.

Stratum zonale of the thalamus. This "covers the dorsal surface and the external and internal medullary laminae".
Stratum zonale of the superior colliculus. This is the topmost of 7 layers, "a thin layer consisting of small myelinated axons together with marginal and horizontal cells".
Stratum zonale of the cerebral cortex. This is described in a 1911 encyclopedia: https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/1911_Encyclop%C3%A6dia_Britannica/Brain. See the section on "Histology of Cerebral Cortex". It is a synonym for Layer 1, the Molecular Layer.

The third case is not such a big problem, although this synonym probably should be mentioned in the article on the cerebral cortex. But there's just a chance that the first and second "stratum zonale" definitions could be the same or closely related. My reference books don't cover this. Maybe someone else could look this up. Alan U. Kennington (talk) 09:11, 11 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Possible move of "subdivision principles" and "multi-perspective" sections to here.

@User:Iztwoz I'm asking you this because I've noticed you are very active in the neuroscience area on wikipedia. (Feedback from other editors would be very welcome also.) I'm thinking that it would be a good idea to move the new sections which I have created in the List of thalamic nuclei article into the Thalamus article. But I don't want the ignominy of being reverted if this is an unpopular move.

The two sections which I want to move are:

I gather that a "list class" page is not supposed to have anything more than links to other wikipedia pages. So a "list class" page should not have real information. So I would like to move those two sections onto the Thalamus page. I think they would be helpful.

Does this seem like a reasonable idea? Alan U. Kennington (talk) 12:28, 8 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Hello Alan U. Kennington - first off you are right in that any detailed info is not wanted on a list page. And I think it is always reasonable to include any relevant article info in the target - shall have a look at page. (Already changed a link) Thanks --Iztwoz (talk) 14:18, 8 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@User:Alan U. Kennington Just to repeat that other info is not needed on a list page. Also references are not needed for the individual linked listed items. On the Thalamus page itself have made some edits. Without bulldozing your work can I suggest that the listed nuclei you have added is a bit out of place and repetitive - there is already the main article hatnote for the list, two diagrams listing them and repeated prose.--Iztwoz (talk) 21:41, 11 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Iztwoz Sorry for the 5 hour reply-delay, but I've just woken up in Australia after working on wikipedia until 3am. So I'll get to work soon on your comments, which of course I agree with. I've been following your thalamus editing in great detail, and am grateful that you haven't "bulldozed" my work. (That did happen to me about 10 years ago, which made me give up editing for 10 years except for fixing typos.) I've noticed that you are considerately trying not to clobber my efforts.

Now concerning the thalamus, this is my principal focus at the moment for some investigations into the physics of the brain. So I am an outsider with expertise in other subjects. So I see things from that point of view. Wikipedia needs both experts to provide and verify the facts, but it also needs outsiders to try to make the material accessible to non-experts. In biology, I am outsider. And in the thalamus area I see much chaos and contradiction. This seems to be the result of some kind of explosion of research into this area in recent decades. So the definitions and knowledge haven't settled yet. I guess this is true in thousands of different areas, but right now, what I am looking for is order in the chaos.

The diagrams of the thalamus in wikipedia contain substantial contradictions. It's difficult to find any two diagrams which are consistent with each other. The subdivisions of the thalamus into nucleus groups, nuclei themselves, and subdivisions of nuclei into "parts" have considerable variation in their naming. And it doesn't help that words like dorsal, ventral, caudal, rostral, anterior and posterior have different meanings in quadrupeds and bipeds.

So my little pieces of work on the thalamus list page were intended as an attempt to bring order to chaos at the top levels of the hierarchy of subdivisions. I put that information in the list page because that's where a reader might go to find the top-level structure of the thalamus. If I had a free hand, and wasn't in constant trepidation of being reverted, I would probably create a separate page which just tries to give a single unified consensus view of the basic anatomy of the thalamus.

When I've had coffee and breakfast, I'll act on what you've said. I'm reluctant to remove all the BrainInfo references for the list page because they bring some kind of authority to the naming scheme. Before I started work on it, there were numerous inconsistencies and perplexing assertions. When I change things, I do try to do the "right thing" by adding a reference. Then the reader who disagrees with what I write can check with the literature. However, if you insist that the list-page should have no item-by-item references, then sadly they must be removed. Once again, I think that the subdivisions of the thalamus should have a real separate page, which would have well-labelled diagrams, a full hierarchy of nuclei, and text to explain just the anatomy.

Alternatively, the tidy top-level, well-referenced full hierarchy of nuclei and nucleus-parts could go on the Thalamus page.

And by the way, I have just ordered another 7 books from Amazon on the thalamus and the brain generally. With these, I can probably add many more authoritative references. Anyway, my coffee is getting cold. Catch up later. Cheers. Alan U. Kennington (talk) 02:34, 12 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Iztwoz Now I have removed the multi-perspective diagrams from the thalamus list page. Before that, I copied that material into the "Additional images" section of the main "Thalamus" page, removing almost all NeuroName references, and removing some explanatory footnotes.

If you want to delete the annotated multi-perspective diagrams from the main Thalamus page (as opposed to the two thumbnails which have been there since 2006), that's your privilege. I would just ask that you do a delete edit-operation, not a revert, because a revert is bad for the reputation!

It is because the other thalamus diagrams are so ambiguous that I wanted to highlight the 2006 multi-perspective diagrams and annotate them. Their abbreviations contradict other abbreviation systems. But I have tried to clarify that. The resulting annotated diagrams will be helpful to readers, in my opinion. Cheers. Alan U. Kennington (talk) 03:51, 12 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The thalamus anatomy needs to be restructured

@Iztwoz I realise there is duplication and even triplication of assertions in the thalamus "Anatomy" section. But I don't think it is a good idea to just delete anything which duplicates an earlier assertion. In my opinion, the original section-structure, before I added the "Subdivisions" sub-subsection, was already poorly organised and contained redundancies, as does often happen with multiple authors over many years!

At the moment there are three aspects of anatomy which are mixed up in sections and subsections. The first aspect is the context of the thalamus in regard to its neighbours. The second is the evolutionary and multi-species issues. The third aspect is the internal hierarchical subdivision of the thalamus into nucleus groups, nuclei, and so forth.

I think it would be best to have one subsection about the anatomical context of the thalamus within the brain. Then another subsection about the species/evolution issues (and possibly early development from the embryo), and then a third subsection about the subdivision of the thalamus into nucleus groups etc. The sub-subsection which I added on "Subdivisions" was meant to tidily explain the internal structure all in one place.

The reason for the current redundancies is the mixing of multiple topics. Alan U. Kennington (talk) 05:27, 12 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The page stats for this page are quite daunting! 14,170 views in 30 days, and 1235 pages link to it. I think this means that the efforts to improve it are well worth making. Alan U. Kennington (talk) 06:01, 12 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The ubiquitous Thalmus.png diagram for the thalamic nuclei.

The file Thalmus.png, which is on 15 wikipedia pages about the Thalamus, is apparently derived from a diagram in Netter's Atlas of Human Anatomy. It appears on page 112 of the 6th edition. It's almost identical except for the colours. But the list of abbreviations in the original includes "VI Ventral Intermedial", whereas the derived version on wikipedia has the misspelling "VI Ventral intermediat nucleus". This finally explains where that annoying misspelling comes from.

As it happens, there does exist a Ventral Intermediate Nucleus. There are many articles about this nucleus in search engines. For example the article by Bertino et al, which I just added.

The significance of this observation is that the VI on that semi-ubiquitous diagram actually signifies "Ventral intermedial" in the original. Maybe that's an alternative spelling for "Ventral intermediate". Maybe not! Alan U. Kennington (talk) 08:26, 13 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The added files could be added into the thalamic nuclei section but they would need to be of a smaller size and the accompanying info needs addressing - it is awkwardly placed. If the ThalamicNuclei.svg file was used with its legend then just those that weren't included could be used. (And the VI in the file states 'ventral intermediat' clearly the same as intermediate).--Iztwoz (talk) 11:58, 14 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Iztwoz The main argument against making those multi-perspective diagrams smaller is that they would be very much less useful. They would show much less detail.

Maybe those multi-perspective files should go back to being unannotated thumbnails as they were before. I have been trying to make the 3-d arrangement of nuclei clearer to the reader, and to myself. But if wikipedia style guidelines say that my contributions have to go, so be it. I might go back to just fixing typos. Alan U. Kennington (talk) 12:10, 14 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

All's well that ends well, as they say. The multi-perspective diagrams are now annotated thumbnails, which I guess is the best compromise. (Thanks to @Iztwoz.) There's currently a dearth of accurate diagrams of thalamic nuclei on wikipedia. Most of the current diagrams are wildly inaccurate. Luckily there is a literature outside wikipedia where the diagrams are better, but for now it's the 2006 Htkym diagrams which give most clarity, for 12 of the nuclei at least. Anyway, mission accomplished. The caravan moves on! Alan U. Kennington (talk) 01:24, 18 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]