Ever wonder where the axons of Eyewire cells end up?

LGN, corticothalamo, retina, thalamus, axon, electron microscope
Retinal ganglion axon terminations innervating corticothalamo neurons of the LGN. Image: Josh Morgan’s Lab

Axons of retinal ganglion cells, as are mapped by Eyewirers, converge to become the optic nerve. Our dataset ends before that happens, so we’ve not gotten to see where those axons end up. Until now! The image above shows the endpoints of cells like those that send projections out of the Eyewire dataset.

 Josh Morgan’s lab has some nice images of the LGN, the intermediary part of the brain that conducts signals from the optic nerve to visual cortex. The LGN is part of the Thalamus, a part of the brain “involved in sensory and motor signal relay and the regulation of consciousness and sleep.”

LGN stands for “lateral geniculate nucleus”
**Lateral** meaning side, because there are 2 LGNs in the brain and each one serves only one eye
** geniculate** meaning to bend abruptly, as the knee, for the [LGN is bent like a taco](http://www.cns.nyu.edu/~david/courses/perception/lecturenotes/V1/LGN-V1-slides/Slide6.jpg)
**nucleus** a hub, generally referring to specified sub-regions of the brain