General
- A central component of the mesolimbic dopamine reward system known to be dysfunctional in affective disorders, addiction and learning
Main trunk
- The MFB originates from deep cerebellar nuclei, traverses to superior cerebellar peduncle and reaches the ventral tegmental area.
- connection between cerebellar dentate nucleus (DN) and red nucleus (RN)
Two branches
- inferomedial branch
- Goes anteriorly to the lateral hypothalamus
- Correspond to
- Mamillotegmental tract
- Superolateral branch
- Goes to the anterior frontal regions passing through the anterior limb of internal capsule (aLIC) along with anterior thalamic radiation (ATR)
Connects: Septal area to brain stem via hypothalamus
- Ventral tegmental area (VTA)
- Lateral and medial hypothalamus
- Sublenticular regions
- Lateral and medial preoptic region
- The diagonal band
- The ventral striatum(VS)
- NAc
- Septal area
- ?? Olfactory bulb
The bundle is formed (possibly) from the following tract
- Hypothalamospinal tract
- Originates in the ciliospinal center of the interomediolateral cell column and goes through the lateral funiculus and tegmental area of the medulla, pons and midbrain and reaches to the hypothalamus
- Dentate-rubro-thalamo-cortical (DRTC) tract
- Damage in cerebellar mutism
- Mamillo-tegmental tract