Functional role of basal ganglia in normal and pathological behaviour

Abstract

The basal ganglia (BG) appear to exert their major influence on motor functions and their related different behavioral activities. It has been proposed that the BG subserve relatively automatic responses to sensory inputs involving high-level functions like behavioural learning and procedural memory. Moreover, BG play a key role in the processes driving motor performance including emotion, motivation and reward. Severe neurological and neuropsychiatric disorders such as Parkinson’s disease (PD), ballism, Huntington’s chorea, Tourette’s syndrome and obsessive-compulsive disorder have been linked to BG dysfunctions. This article emphasizes the role of the BG in appropriate behavioural response to environmental cues suggesting that the inability to execute specific behavioural sequences may be explained by localized deficits as well as by alterations affecting complex cortico-basal ganglia circuits.