INTEGRATION OF CORTICAL ACTIVITY BY STRIATAL MEDIUM SPINY NEURONS

FERNANDO KASANETZ; M. GUSTAVO MURER

The Basal Ganglia VIII

Springer-Verlag New York

Año: 2005; p. 475 - 484

Striatal Medium-size Spiny Neurons (MSNs) are projection cells and constitute the main link between cortical and thalamic inputs and the remaining Basal Ganglia (BG) structures (Bolam et al., 2000; Wilson, 2004). Far from being just a relay station, MSNs are supposed to perform integrative computations that are essential for cortico-BG functions. Much of our thinking regarding MSN function is derived from the well-known anatomical organisation of the corticostriatal system. Almost all cortical regions project, in a topographically-ordered fashion, to the striatal complex. In the rat, sensorimotor and cognitive-limbic afferents arrive to the dorsolateral and ventromedial striatum respectively (McGeorge and Faull, 1989). This organization presumably allows parallel processing across cortico-BG channels, where modality-related cortices converge and non-related cortices presumably diverge in the striatal space (Alexander et al., 1990; Flaherty and Graybiel, 1994; Alloway et al., 2000).