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Basal Ganglia: Control of Saccades

Encyclopedia of Computational Neuroscience

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Definition

The basal ganglia are a set of subcortical interconnected nuclei, subdivided in parallel circuits. They form loops with specific cortical and subcortical regions and play a central role in the selection of actions as well as in learning to bias these selections towards the most profitable options. One of these loops appears to be specialized in saccadic eye movements. Most of the existing computational models consider that it is responsible for the choice, among all possible targets, of the target of the next saccade.

Detailed Description

Basal Ganglia Saccadic Circuitry

The basal ganglia are a set of subcortical nuclei common to all vertebrates (see “Basal Ganglia: Overview”). The basal ganglia are components of two main types of loops: cortico-baso-thalamo-cortical loops (Alexander et al. 1986) as well as subcortical ones (McHaffie et al. 2005). Within these two categories, sub-loops can be characterized, dedicated to various functions; one cortical loop dedicated to eye...

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References

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Further Reading

  • Girard B, Berthoz A (2005) From brainstem to cortex: computational models of saccade generation circuitry. Prog Neurobiol 77:215–251

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Sorbonne Universités, UPMC Univ Paris 06, UMR 7222, ISIR, F-75005, Paris, France

    Benoît Girard Ph.D.

Authors
  1. Benoît Girard Ph.D.
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Correspondence to Benoît Girard Ph.D. .

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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Girard, B. (2014). Basal Ganglia: Control of Saccades. In: Jaeger, D., Jung, R. (eds) Encyclopedia of Computational Neuroscience. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-7320-6_516-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-7320-6_516-1

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  • Online ISBN: 978-1-4614-7320-6

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Chapter history

  1. Latest

    Basal Ganglia: Control of Saccades
    Published:
    21 July 2019

    DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-7320-6_516-2

  2. Original

    Basal Ganglia: Control of Saccades
    Published:
    22 March 2014

    DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-7320-6_516-1

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