An Unfolded Map of the Cerebellar Dentate Nucleus and its Projections to the Cerebral Cortex

We have used retrograde transneuronal transport of neurotropic viruses to examine the organization of the projections from the dentate nucleus of the cerebellum to “motor” and “nonmotor” areas of the cerebral cortex. To perform this analysis we created an unfolded map of the dentate. Plotting the results from current and prior experiments on this unfolded map revealed important features about the topography of function in the dentate. We found that the projections to the primary motor and premotor areas of the cerebral cortex originated from dorsal portions of the dentate. In contrast, projections to prefrontal and posterior parietal areas of cortex originated from ventral portions of the dentate. Thus the dentate contains anatomically separate and functionally distinct motor and nonmotor domains.