RESEARCH ARTICLE Dual midbrain and forebrain origins of thalamic inhibitory interneurons Polona Jager1, Gerald Moore2,3, Padraic Calpin4, Xhuljana Durmishi1, Irene Salgarella1, Lucy Menage1, Yoshiaki Kita5, Yan Wang5, Dong Won Kim6, Seth Blackshaw6, Simon R Schultz2, Stephen Brickley3, Tomomi Shimogori5, Alessio Delogu1* 1Department of Basic and Clinical Neuroscience, Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology and Neuroscience, King’s College London, London, United Kingdom; 2Department of Bioengineering, Imperial College London, London, United Kingdom; 3Department of Life Sciences and Centre for Neurotechnology, Imperial College London, London, United Kingdom; 4Department of Physics and Astronomy, University College London, London, United Kingdom; 5RIKEN, Center for Brain Science (CBS), Saitama, Japan; 6The Solomon H. Snyder Department of Neuroscience, School of Medicine, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, United States Abstract The ubiquitous presence of inhibitory interneurons in the thalamus of primates contrasts with the sparsity of interneurons reported in mice. Here, we identify a larger than expected complexity and distribution of interneurons across the mouse thalamus, where all thalamic interneurons can be traced back to two developmental programmes: one specified in the midbrain and the other in the forebrain. Interneurons migrate to functionally distinct thalamocortical nuclei depending on their origin: the abundant, midbrain-derived class populates the first and higher order sensory thalamus while the rarer, forebrain-generated class is restricted to some higher order associative regions. We also observe that markers for the midbrain-born class are abundantly expressed throughout the thalamus of the New World monkey marmoset. These data therefore reveal that, despite the broad variability in interneuron density across mammalian *For correspondence: species, the blueprint of the ontogenetic organisation of thalamic interneurons of larger-brained
[email protected] mammals exists and can be studied in mice.