Overall, the calcium-binding proteins show a complementary staining pattern in the human thalamus.
Moderate amounts of parvalbumin staining are also present in regions of the medio-dorsal nucleus (MD).
By contrast, calbindin and calretinin immunoreactivity show a similar distribution of dense staining in the rostral intralaminar nuclear group and in the patchy regions of the MD thalamus, which appears to complement the pattern of parvalbumin staining.
However, calbindin and calretinin also show low levels of staining in the ventral nuclear group and in the medial and lateral geniculate bodies, which overlaps with the intense parvalbumin staining in these regions.
These results show that the calcium-binding proteins are heterogeneously distributed in a complementary fashion within the nuclei of the thalamus.