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The Basal Ganglia Contribution to Controlled and Automatic Processing

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Book cover The Basal Ganglia

Part of the book series: Innovations in Cognitive Neuroscience ((Innovations Cogn.Neuroscience))

Abstract

The basal ganglia are traditionally associated with motor activity. However, recent studies indicate that this structure plays a key role in cognitive processes. In this chapter, we analyze the involvement of the dorsal striatum in controlled and automatic processes. These two concepts are major research topics in psychology and neuroscience, since they have a relevance to different fields such as attention, learning, and memory. The dorsal striatum is a structure anatomically divided into different main functional domains that are essential for the acquisition and expression of habits and goal-directed behaviors. From these recent ideas of basal ganglia function, this chapter includes an integrative view of normal and pathological processes observed in some mental and degenerative illness.

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Acknowledgments

His research was supported by PSI2012-32445 and PSI 2015-65500P grants.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Animal Behavior and Neuroscience Laboratory, Dpt. Psicologia Experimental, School of Psychology, Universidad de Sevilla, C/ Camilo Jose Cela s/n, 41018, Sevilla, Spain

    Estrella Díaz Ph.D., Juan-Pedro Vargas Ph.D. & Juan-Carlos López Ph.D.

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  1. Estrella Díaz Ph.D.
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  2. Juan-Pedro Vargas Ph.D.
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  3. Juan-Carlos López Ph.D.
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Correspondence to Estrella Díaz Ph.D. .

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  1. Department of Anatomy and Neurobiology, Boston University School of Medicine, Boston, Massachusetts, USA

    Jean-Jacques Soghomonian

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Díaz, E., Vargas, JP., López, JC. (2016). The Basal Ganglia Contribution to Controlled and Automatic Processing. In: Soghomonian, JJ. (eds) The Basal Ganglia. Innovations in Cognitive Neuroscience. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-42743-0_11

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