Pausing to Regroup: Thalamic Gating of Cortico-Basal Ganglia Networks

How the cholinergic and dopaminergic systems of the striatum interact and how these interface with the massive neocortical input to the striatum are classic questions of cardinal interest to neurology and psychiatry. In this issue of Neuron, Ding and colleagues show that a key to these puzzles lies in the thalamic inputs to the striatum targeting its cholinergic interneurons.