Although prefrontal areas have been widely studied and implicated in various brain functions and disorders, there is a surprising lack of commonly accepted nomenclature and delineation of its subdivisions. Rodent stereotaxic atlases, on which experimentalists rely the most, are regularly updated as no consensus is found [15]. In the absence of clear landmarks to define the mPFC, a lot is left to individual appreciation which can lead to apparent incoherencies between studies and overall misinterpretation. Until a unified nomenclature is accepted in the field, it is necessary that authors report precise stereotaxic coordinates and explicitly define the brain region(s) they study.
For simplicity here, we will use the following nomenclature for the 3 major subdivisions of the mPFC: -the Anterior Cingulate Cortex (ACC), sometimes referred to as Anterior Cingulate Area, dorsal and ventral (dACA and vACA-Allen Brain Atlas) or Cingulate cortex area 1 and 2 (Cg1 and Cg2-Paxinos and Franklin). -the Prelimblic Cortex (PL) or Prelimbic Area -the Infralimbic Cortex (IL) or Infralimbic Area
Although the human PFC evolved to be relatively bigger and more complex than the rodent PFC, notably with more clearly defined subregions, homologies in embryological development, layer organization, cell-type distribution and connectivity patterns advocate for potentially shared functions. For an anatomical definition and a comparison between human and rodent PFC, see Carlén, 2017 [16]. For a very detailed description of the cytoarchitecture of the mouse PFC, see Van de Werd et al., 2010 [17], and for a comparison between mouse reference atlases, see Le Merre et al., 2021 [15].
	Box figure. Coronal sections of the mouse brain along the antero-posterior axis with the 3 major subdivions of the mPFC highlighted (Anterior cingulate cortex ACC, Prelimbic cortex PL, Infralimbic cortex IL) based on the Allen Brain Atlas.