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Encyclopedia of Computational Neuroscience pp 1–7Cite as

Basal Ganglia: Mechanisms for Action Selection

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Definition

The basal ganglia are an interconnected circuit of fore- and midbrain nuclei common to all extant vertebrates, including the lamprey, which diverged from the main vertebrate line approximately 560 MYA. Moreover, there are analogous structures in birds and bony fish. The preservation of this circuit implies a crucial operation that solves a problem common to all vertebrates. While many functions for the basal ganglia have been proposed, our current best theory to unify these ideas is that this circuit solves the common problem of action selection. Informally put, this is the problem of how to decide what to do next.

Detailed Description

Why Action Selection?

The necessity of a mechanism for action selection is imposed by the strong constraint that complex animals have a final common motor pathway: the connections of the spinal cord and the number of muscle groups limit the set of actions that can be expressed simultaneously. Some mechanism is required to reduce the repertoire...

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Faculty of Life Sciences, University of Manchester, Manchester, UK

    Mark D Humphries

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  1. Mark D Humphries
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Correspondence to Mark D Humphries .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Atlanta, Georgia, USA

    Dieter Jaeger

  2. Department of Biomedical Engineering, Florida International University, Miami, Florida, USA

    Ranu Jung

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© 2014 Springer Science+Business Media New York

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Humphries, M.D. (2014). Basal Ganglia: Mechanisms for Action Selection. In: Jaeger, D., Jung, R. (eds) Encyclopedia of Computational Neuroscience. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-7320-6_83-3

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-7320-6_83-3

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, New York, NY

  • Online ISBN: 978-1-4614-7320-6

  • eBook Packages: Springer Reference Biomedicine and Life SciencesReference Module Biomedical and Life Sciences

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