Determining the anterior-posterior extent of the rat Posterior Parietal Cortex

Abstract

This paper identifies a location defining the anterior-posterior (AP) boundaries of the posterior parietal cortex (PPC) in the rat brain. The PPC receives information from neuronal connections in various regions of the brain; the regions directly anterior and posterior to the PPC likewise receive information from neurons, but from connections in different brain regions. Two retrograde tracers were injected along the AP axis into sites in and around the PPC. The location of the border between the PPC and neighboring regions can be determined as lying between the two injection sites if the two tracers move to different brain regions as this indicates that the injection sites were not both in the same region, but rather straddle the border. Results are analyzed from a series of repeated experiments in which a pair of injection sites were targeted to straddle the border between PPC and the neighboring region, secondary visual cortex (V2). Improvements to the method used are then addressed to aid future experimentation.