From the injection site, groups of anterogradely labeled fibers also take either a dorsolateral or a ventrolateral course and continue through the ventral thalamus, providing a substantial input to the medial zone of the ventral lateral geniculate nucleus and caudal regions of the zona incerta (Fig. 5J–L).

Some of [..] fibers continue to the rostral pole of the zona incerta, where they merge with a group of labeled axons ascending through the hypothalamic path and form a strikingly dense terminal field in the rostral pole of the zona incerta that certainly represents one of the main targets of the PRC (Fig. 5G,H). Remarkably, the region that seems to correspond to the A13 dopaminergic cell group, embedded within the rostral zona incerta, tends to be avoided by this dense plexus of fibers (Fig. 5H).