The human neostriatum consists of two functional subdivisions referred to as the striosome (patch) and matrix compartments. The striosome-matrix dopamine systems play a central role in cortico-thalamo-basal ganglia circuits, and their involvement is thought to underlie the genesis of multiple movement and behavioral disorders, and of drug addiction. Human neuropathology also has shown that stri...

Most neurons in the neostriatum are GABAergic spiny projection neurons with extensive local axon collaterals innervating principally other spiny projection neurons. The other source of GABAergic inputs to spiny neurons derives from a small number of interneurons, of which the best characterized are the parvalbumin-containing, fast-spiking interneurons. Spiny neuron collateral inhibition was not...

To investigate the molecular basis of regional variation in expression of brain acetylcholinesterase (AChE; EC 3.1.1.7), steady-state levels of AChE activity and mRNA were examined. Relative AChE activity in Triton extracts from six areas of the rat brain varied as follows: cortex < cerebellum < medulla < pons-midbrain < thalamus < striatum. In contralateral samples from the same brains, AChE m...

Five or more dopamine receptor genes are expressed in brain. However, the pharmacological similarities of the encoded D1-D5 receptors have hindered studies of the localization and functions of the subtypes. To better understand the roles of the individual receptors, antibodies were raised against recombinant D1 and D2 proteins and were shown to bind to the receptor subtypes specifically in West...

An auditory projection to the frontolateral telencephalon of birds, originally described by Iljitschew, is confirmed for the pigeon. Potentials evoked by acoustic stimuli were recorded from the neostriatum frontale closely surrounding the nucleus basalis, in anesthetized and awake subjects. The latency of these responses was short (5 to 8 ms) compared to that of responses recorded from the orth...

The effects of low concentrations of toluene (40-80 ppm, 3 days, 6 h/day) were investigated on spontaneous and on apomorphine-induced locomotor activity in the rat, and were correlated to effects on S(-)[N-propyl-3H(N)]-propylnorapomorphine ([3H]NPA) binding in rat neostriatal membranes, on membrane fluidity, membrane leakage, and calcium levels in synaptosomes from the frontoparietal cortex, t...

The neostriatum is the principal recipient of afferents to basal ganglia from the cerebral cortex, especially, from the frontal cortex. These two large forebrain structures, the neostriatum (caudate-putamen) and cortex, are both composed of morphologically diverse types of neurons. Recently striatal and frontal cortical interneurons have been characterized from various points of view and they a...

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE Leukoencephalopathies of unknown origin constitute a considerable problem in child neurology. The purpose of our ongoing study of the subject was to define new disease entities among them by using primarily MR imaging pattern recognition. METHODS We identified seven unrelated patients with a distinct MR imaging pattern consisting of hypomyelination and atrophy of the ba...

Dopamine- and cAMP-regulated phosphoprotein of 32 kDa (DARPP-32) plays a central role in medium spiny neurons in the neostriatum in the integration of various neurotransmitter signaling pathways. In its Thr-34-phosphorylated form, it acts as a potent protein phosphatase-1 inhibitor, and, in its Thr-75-phosphorylated form, it acts as a cAMP-dependent kinase inhibitor. Here, we investigated gluta...

A model is presented for the low-level operation of the basal ganglia in the brain. The model posits that the basal ganglia are responsible for driving smooth transitions of state (e.g., joint positions) for an organism. This is accomplished through the computation of a potential function on which a gradient descent is performed to the desired state. The model proposes that various contiguous p...