The striatum is essential for learning which actions lead to reward and for implementing
those actions. Decades of experimental and theoretical work have led to several influential …

The ability to establish behaviorally what psychological capacity an animal is deploying—to
discern accurately what an animal is doing—is key to functional analyses of the brain. Our …

The mammalian brain is composed of diverse, specialized cell populations. To
systematically ascertain and learn from these cellular specializations, we used Drop-seq to …

The cortex projects to the dorsal striatum topographically, to regulate behaviour,–, but
spiking activity in the two structures has previously been reported to have markedly different …

Here, we review the neural circuit bases of habits, compulsions, and addictions, behaviors
which are all characterized by relatively automatic action performance. We discuss relevant …

Deciding what to do and when to move is vital to our survival. Clinical and fundamental
studies have identified basal ganglia circuits as critical for this process. The main input …

Habits, both good ones and bad ones, are pervasive in animal behavior. Important
frameworks have been developed to understand habits through psychological and …

Highlights•Homeostatic plasticity plays an important role in mitigating striatal
pathophysiology in the early stages of PD.•Aberrant dopamine-dependent synaptic plasticity …

The striatum is densely innervated by mesencephalic dopaminergic neurons that modulate
acquisition and vigor of goal-directed actions and habits. This innervation is progressively …

The external globus pallidus (GPe) coordinates action-selection through GABAergic
projections throughout the basal ganglia. GPe arkypallidal (arky) neurons project exclusively …