Development of the mouse anterior amygdalar radial unit marked by Lhx9-expression

The amygdala in mammals plays a key role in emotional processing and learning, being subdivided in pallial and subpallial derivatives. Recently, the cortical ring model and the pallial amygdalar radial model (Puelles et al. 2019; Garcia-Calero et al. 2020) described the pallial amygdala as an histogenetic field external to the allocortical ring, and subdivided it in five major radial domains called lateral, basal, anterior, posterior and retroendopiriform units. The anterior radial unit, whose cells typically express the Lhx9 gene (see molecular profile in Garcia-Calero et al. 2020), is located next to the pallial/subpallial boundary. This radial domain shows massive radial translocation and accumulation of its derivatives into its intermediate and superficial strata, with only a glial palisade representing its final periventricular domain. To better understand the development of this singular radial domain, not described previously, we followed the expression of Lhx9 during mouse amygdalar development in the context of the postulated radial subdivisions of the pallial amygdala and other telencephalic developmental features.