Basal Ganglia and Thalamus: Their Role in Cognition and Behavior

The basal ganglia are traditionally involved in the control of movement. The most wise and prophetical works by Crossen (1996 and successive), and by Bogousslavsky stated clearly that the basal ganglia participate in multiple circuits or 'loops' with cognitive areas of the cerebral cortex; moreover, the activity of neurons within selected portions of the basal ganglia is more related to cognitive or sensory operations than to motor functions. Selection of phonological strings and morphological activities are clearly under the processation of basal ganglia loop. Moreover, automatic language is strictly bound to caudate and putamen articulatory and semnatic loop. Finally, in some instances basal ganglia lesions cause behaviour disturbances, such as apathia and the so called, frontal anterior syndrome, as well as palypsychism. In this the authors review these data, present experimental data, and detect the possible anatomical and functional framework for understanding the basal ganglia contributions to non-motor function.