Crossed pathways from the entorhinal area to the fascia dentata. II. Provokable in rats.

In the rat thhe perforant pathways from the entorhinal area normally innervate the fascia dentata only ipsilaterally. However, unilateral ablation of the entorhinal area (deentorhination) induces the formation of an anomalous crossed projection from the intact contralateral entorhinal area to the septal portion of the deafferented fascia dentata. After deentorhination of rats aged 1-30 days the organization of this projection was analyzed (a) by producing secondary lesions in the intact entorhinal area of perforant paths and observing the results anterograde degeneration with Fink-Heimer silver impregnation techniques, and (b) by staining with Timm's sulfide silver method whichmakes the terminal fields of afferent systems stand out in different tones of colors. Both methods showed the crossed entorhino-dentate projection to consist of two separable components. They were named the crossed medial perforant path and the crossed lateral perforant path, corresponding to their similarity in origin, dendritic localization of termination and Timm stainability to the ordinary, uncrossed medial and the lateral perforant pathways (MPP and LPP) which arise in the medial and lateral parts of the entorhinal cortex, respectively. Similarly induced crossed projections were demonstrated to the subcallosal continuation of fascia dentata, the fasciola cinerea. The heaviest terminal field of the crossed entorhino-dentate projection which was found in the most rostral and medial parts of the deafferented fascia dentata correlated with a lack of expected aberrant extension into theMPP and LPP terminal zones of commissural and ipsilateral hippocampodentate fibers. In Fink-Heimer preparations there was little variation in the distribution of the aberrant crossed sustems over the range of ages studied although the chronic operations performed earliest postnatally (5 days) tended to produce the heaviest representation. This latter observation appeared consistent with changes in the Timm staining pattern of the deafferented fascia dentata, since with an increase in age at the primary lesion from 5 to 14 days there was no increase in the spread into the fascia dentata of Timm stainable axon ter minals from CA3, interpreted as a sign of fewer crossed entorhinal afferents succeeding in a presumable competition with the CA3-derived system for available terminal space.