Changing Views of Basal Ganglia Circuits and Circuit Disorders

• Type of Material: Article
• Authors: Thomas Wichmann, Emory University; Mahlon DeLong, Emory University
• Language: English
• Date: 2010-04-01
• Publisher: SAGE Publications (UK and US)
• Publication Version: Author Accepted Manuscript (After Peer Review)
• Copyright Statement: © 2010
• Final Published Version (URL): http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/155005941004100204
• Title of Journal or Parent Work: Clinical EEG and Neuroscience
• ISSN: 1550-0594
• Volume: 41
• Issue: 2
• Start Page: 61
• End Page: 67
• Keywords: Neurosciences; Basal Ganglia; Circuit Disorder; Striatum; Pallidum; Pathophysiology; FUNCTIONAL-ANATOMY; GLOBUS-PALLIDUS NEURONS; EXTERNAL PALLIDUM; DEEP BRAIN-STIMULATION; Parkinson's Disease; Social Sciences; Dopamine; Neuroimaging; Science & Technology; DISCHARGE; PRIMARY MOTOR CORTEX; PARKINSONS-DISEASE; ORGANIZATION; Neurosciences & Neurology; Psychiatry; CEREBELLAR; PRIMATE SUBTHALAMIC NUCLEUS; Psychology; Clinical Neurology; Life Sciences & Biomedicine; Subthalamic Nucleus
• Research Categories: Health Sciences, Medicine and Surgery; Biology, Neuroscience

Abstract

The basal ganglia (BG) have long been considered to play an important role in the control of movement and the pathophysiology of movement disorders, such as Parkinson's disease (PD). Studies over the past decades have considerably broadened this view, indicating that the BG participate in multiple, parallel, largely segregated, cortico-subcortical reentrant pathways involving motor, associative and limbic functions. Research has shown that dysfunction within individual circuits is associated not only with movement disorders, but also with neuropsychiatric disorders. Accordingly, a number of movement disorders and neuropsychiatric disorders such as obsessive compulsive disorder and Tourette's syndrome are viewed as "circuit disorders." We here discuss the changes in our current understanding of the anatomic and functional organization of BG circuits and related circuit disorders.