Building motor programs

Sensorimotor functions of
the basal ganglia

EXCI-355 Neural
Control of Human
Movement
Plan
 Intro – the basal ganglia, an important region for
movement programming
 Anatomy
 Connections/cellular basis
 Flow of information through the basal ganglia
 Pathology
 Parkinson’s
 Huntington’s
 Multiple parallel loops
 Conclusions
Functions of the basal ganglia
- Supports high level movements to be produced

 Regulate muscle contraction, force

 Initiation and termination of movement
 Regulate multi-joint movements
 Control movement sequencing
 Oculomotor control
 Habit learning
 Figure 18.1 Motor components of the
human basal ganglia
- Nuclei inside the grey matter at
base of brain
- Some components in the
midbrain
- Orange: parts of the basal
ganglia receiving info from
outside & sequencing movement
(caudate nucleus & putamen 
striatum)
- Purple: globus pallidus
- Green: subthalamic nuclei,
substantia nigra pars compacta
 neurons that die prematurely
in Parkinson’s
3-D view of the basal ganglia

Caudate nucleus +
putamen = striatum

 Striatum = input
nuclei

Fig. 10-1, Lundy-Ekman

Figure 18.2 Anatomical organization
of the inputs to the basal ganglia

- Striatum receive input from all cortical

areas
- Globus pallidus important for output
Regions of the cerebral cortex that project
to the corpus striatum

Blue = area of brain that projects to basal ganglia

Exceptions: primary sensory auditory & visual areas
do not have direct connections to basal ganglia
Activity: Basal ganglia
structures
 Which part of the basal ganglia is the input side?
Striatum (caudate nucleus & putamen)
 Which part of the basal ganglia is the output side?
Internal globus pallidus, substantia nigra reticulata
 Do the basal ganglia talk to the spinal cord? No
 Which part of the basal ganglia goes wrong in
Parkinson’s disease? Substantia nigra pars
compacta
 Which neurotransmitter does this imply? Dopamine
(neuromodulator)
Role of basal ganglia
 Basal ganglia are involved in movement
programming
 Basal ganglia could be involved in the
chunking of movement into more complex
patterns - “motor programs”
 Basal ganglia are money players: they like
rewards to favor certain motor programs
 Substantia nigra responds to reward,
or the earliest cue to predict reward!
- Substantia nigra compacta
neurons responds
specifically to reward or to
cues that indicate reward
- Chocolate milk given to an
animal trained
- Reward not paired at first
 trigger does not trigger
any activity
- Reward triggers activity in
substantia nigra compacta
- Added a cue that would
predict reward: neuron
starts firing at earliest point
that it can predict reward is
chultz et al. (1995b) happening
 Basal ganglia could actually favor
the coding of motor sequences
- Grooming behavior in
rodents
- Have a predictable
sequence of
movements (syntactic
chain)
- Sequence is known
where 80% of time it
happens in the same
way
- Non-chain grooming:
out of order activity

Aldridge & Berridge, 1998

Cells only firing if during a
sequence
- Neurons fire in relation
to specific
movements/different
phases
- sequence matters,
motor actions produce
the behavior

Aldridge & Berridge, 1998

Activity:
 What kind of movement are the basal ganglia
best suited to represent? A rewarded
sequence of movement
 MUST we use the basal ganglia to move? No

 What is the function of the basal ganglia?

Developing motor patterns of activity &
successful motor programs
Figure 18.3 Neurons and circuits of
the basal ganglia

- Cortex sends
command down
to basal
ganglia,
striatum senses
command &
have dopamine
that comes in
 influences
how the info is
going to go
outside the
basal ganglia
- Cortical to
striatum
synapse is
under influence
of dopamine in
substantia nigra
Figure 18.4 Functional organization of intrinsic
circuitry and outputs of basal ganglia

Direct pathway of basal ganglia:

- Cortex sends command down to striatum
- Synapse that connects them involves GABA
(inhibitory NT)
- If you go from globus pallidus to the thalamus,
NT is also GABA
- Thalamus to cortex: glutamate (excitatory NT)
 Inhibition is inhibited by each other, can release
activity from thalamus to go back to cortex &
excites cerebral cortex
Figure 18.4 Functional organization of intrinsic
circuitry and outputs of the basal ganglia (Part 2)

- Same pathway for eye

movement or motor
skills

Caudate  substantia
nigra pars reticulata 
superior colliculus

Putamen  globus
pallidus  Va/VL nuclei of
the thalamus  Frontal
cortex
Figure 18.5 A chain of nerve cells arranged
in a disinhibitory circuit

- When A is excited it inhibits B which

then inhibits C, releasing its
capacity to activate back to the
cortex
- You see that in time, it opens a
window for activation
- Removing inhibition creates a
possibility of a burst of activity that
will come from thalamus to go back
to the cortex
Figure 18.6
Basal ganglia
disinhibition
and the
generation of
saccadic eye
movements
- Caudate activates
substantia nigra reticulata
but inhibits it  hole in
tonic inhibition allows for
excitation to be possible
- Direct pathway excites
to allow for movement to
be produced
Figure 18.7 Disinhibition in the direct and
indirect pathways through the basal
ganglia (Part 1)
The brake/accelerator model of
the functioning of the BG
 The basal ganglia is
made up of two
pathways that compete

“Excite”
in order to generate
movement
 The two pathways “Inhibit”
could explain
Parkinson’s disease Break-accelerator model
and Huntingdon’s - one pathway suppresses movement
while the other excites it
disease
 Figure 18.7 Disinhibition in the direct and indirect
pathways through the basal ganglia (Part 2)
(know structures in each path) Indirect pathway = inhibitory
Direct pathway = excitatory
Activity: what does the
brake/accelerator model mean?
 The basal ganglia are active prior to movement. Who’s
their boss? Cortex

 What is all the fighting about? As you plan a movement,

different programs are competing

 What is being ‘braked’? What is being ‘accelerated’?

Want to use direct pathway to activate the proper motor
program while indirect pathway inhibits others
Figure 18.8
Center-
surround
functional
organization
of the direct
and indirect
pathways

“The will of the ball”:

See: https://youtu.be/Hj52vD7KGxs
 Figure 18.9
Neurological
disease –
Parkinson’s
Disease
- Competition between
direct & indirect pathways
- Dopamine changes the
balance where the indirect
pathway wins  more
inhibition so difficult to
express intended
movement
- Substantia nigra compacta
neurons have been lost to
a great extent in
Parkinson’s midbrain
Figure 18.10
Neurological
Disease –
Huntington’s
Disease
- Affects substantia nigra &
large components of brain
(nuclei and basal ganglia &
connections between parts)
- Part of the pathway is
weakened affects more
specifically the indirect
pathway & direct is more
expressed  more activation
to cortex & less inhibition to
thalamus
- Produces too much
movement
Figure 18.11 A GABA agonist produces involuntary
movements – like hyperkinesia

Mimic Huntington-like condition: fixate a point in space

- Inhibited pathway that will influence the control of
fixation  involuntary saccades produced
Clinical Application 18 Deep Brain Stimulation

Effects of brain stimulation:

- At some point, L-Dopa is not enough,
dosage is not enough to accommodate the
patient & unwanted effects appear
- Too much activity in the cortex leads to
hallucinations & schizophrenia

To influence synapses:
- Practice motor control tasks
- Intervene electrically by stimulating parts
of the basal ganglia
- Evaluate the activity of APs & look at
results after stimulation to see how
neurons fire
- Look at globus pallidus first
Box 18B Basal Ganglia Loops and Non-Motor
Brain Functions
Conclusions
 The basal ganglia are active in movement
 The basal ganglia serve to program
movement but also cognitive operations
 They are ideally placed to provide contextual
information to movement production
 Disease of the BG can affect the motor loops
(Parkinson’s & Huntington’s)