Seminar · Neuroscience
Network dynamics in the basal ganglia and possible implications for Parkinson’s disease
Jonathan Rubin · University of Pittsburgh
Thu, Oct 14, 2021 · 17:00 UTC
The basal ganglia are a collection of brain areas that are connected by a variety of synaptic pathways and are a site of significant reward-related dopamine release. These properties suggest a possible role for the basal ganglia in action selection, guided by reinforcement learning. In this talk, I will discuss a framework for how this function might be performed. I will also present some recent experimental results and theory that call for a re-evaluation of certain aspects of this framework. Next, I will turn to the changes in basal ganglia activity observed to occur with the dopamine deple