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Concept
Cortico-basal ganglia-thalamo-cortical loop
Summary
The cortico-basal ganglia-thalamo-cortical loop (CBGTC loop) is a system of neural circuits in the brain. The loop involves connections between the cortex, the basal ganglia, the thalamus, and back to the cortex. It is of particular relevance to hyperkinetic and hypokinetic movement disorders, such as Parkinson's disease and Huntington's disease, as well as to mental disorders of control, such as attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), obsessive–compulsive disorder (OCD), and Tourette syndrome.
The CBGTC loop primarily consists of modulatory dopaminergic projections from the pars compacta of the substantia nigra, and ventral tegmental area as well as excitatory glutamatergic projections from the cortex to the striatum, where these projections form synapses with excitatory and inhibitory pathways that relay back to the cortex. The loop was originally proposed as a part of a model of the basal ganglia called the parallel processing model, which has been criticized and modified into another model called the center surround model.
Current organization schemes characterize cortico-basal ganglia interactions as segregated parallel processing, meaning there is little convergence of distinct cortical areas in the basal ganglia. This is thought to explain the topographically organized functionality of the striatum. The striatum is organized on a rostro-caudal axis, with the rostral putamen and caudate serving associative and cognitive functions and the caudal areas serving sensorimotor function. Sometimes when the striatum is the expressed target the loop is referred to as the cortico-striatal-thalamic-cortical loop.
The two major input structures of the circuit are the striatum and the subthalamic nucleus (STN). The striatum receives inputs from both the cortex and the pars compacta of the substantia nigra (SNc), while the STN only receives cortical inputs.
Two pathways emerge from the striatum. One pathway is called the indirect (or NoGo) pathway and is inhibitory.
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