Figure 15. Diagrammatic representation of a parasagittal view of the rat brain, illustrating the VIP chemistry of the thalamus. VIP neurons (blue) are large projecting neurons located in the ventromedial, ventrolateral, ventroposterior lateral, reticular, gelatinosus thalamic nuclei. VIP binding (red) is shown, with the intensity of the color representing the density of VIP binding with the highest binding in the paraventricular, medial geniculate, ventrolateral and ventroposterior lateral thalamic nuclei. Moderate VIP binding is found in the mediodorsal, reuniens and lateral dorsal thalamic nuclei. Afferent neurons from the cortex and striatum are shown in grey. Potential connections with the brain stem and spinal cord are not shown.