Basal ganglia: physiological, behavioral, and computational studies

Abstract

Keywords: basal ganglia, dopamine, Parkinson's disease (PD), computational modeling, animal studies, human imaging studies, deep brain stimulationThe basal ganglia has received much attention over the last two decades, as it has been implicated in many neurological and psychiatric disorders, including Parkinson's disease (PD), Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), Tourette's syndrome, and dystonia. Most of current basal ganglia research-in both animals and humans-attempts to understand the neural and biochemical substrates of basic motor and learning processes, and how these are affected in human patients as well as animal models of brain disorders, particularly PD.The current volume contains research articles and reviews describing basic, pre-clinical and clinical neuroscience research of the basal ganglia written by researchers of the basal ganglia and attendees of the 11th Triennial Meeting of the International Basal Ganglia Society (IBAGS) that was held on March 3-7th, 2013 at the Princess Hotel, Eilat, Israel. Specifically, articles in this volume include research reports on the biochemistry, computational theory, anatomy, and physiology of single neurons and functional circuitry of the basal ganglia networks.Below, we provide a summary of articles published in the volume. We divided the articles into 4 sections: animal studies, human studies, computational modeling, and reviews. ANIMAL STUDIESUsing physiological recordings, Adler et al. (2013) studied the relationship of both medium spiny cells and interneurons of the striatum while monkeys were performing a Pavlovian conditioning task, showing that both classes of neurons play a key role in conditioning. Along these lines, Yael et al. (2013) studied the effects of D2 antagonists (haloperidol) on striatal activity, finding evidence that it alters firing patterns of medium spiny cells and interneurons. Interestingly, Bronfeld et al. (2013) found that microinjection of the GABA A antagonist bicuculline in the dorsal striatum leads to Tourette's tics in rats, potentially highlighting a role of interneurons in such motor symptoms. However, future studies should explain the exact function of interneurons in the generation of tics. In another study, Plata et al. (2013) found that the administration of nicotine activates inhibitory interneurons in the striatum, which can treat motor symptoms of PD (as similar to dopaminergic medications). The implications of these findings remain to be shown in clinical studies. Using whole-cell patch-clamp recordings, Arias-Garcia et al. (2013) found, for the first time, that Ca 2+ -activated K + channels explain the different durations between corticostriatal responses in the basal ganglia direct and indirect pathways. Future research should explain the relationship between these findings and motor symptoms in PD.While the above studies focus on the striatum, other studies in the volume address the function of other downstream basal ganglia structures. For example, Lavian et al. (2013) studied the effects of high and...