New scheme of the basal ganglia in Parkinson's disease

2017 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 15K12770
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Challenging Exploratory Research
• Allocation Type: Multi-year Fund
• Research Field: Basic / Social brain science
• Research Institution: Doshisha University
• Principal Investigator: Fujiyama Fumino 同志社大学, 脳科学研究科, 教授 (20244022)
• Co-Investigator(Kenkyū-buntansha): 苅部 冬紀 同志社大学, 研究開発推進機構, 准教授 (60312279)
• Project Period (FY): 2015-04-01 – 2018-03-31
• Keywords: 大脳基底核

Outline of Final Research Achievements

In rodents, the dorsolateral striatum regulates voluntary movement by integrating excitatory inputs from the motor-related cerebral cortex and thalamus to produce contingent inhibitory output to other basal ganglia nuclei. Striatal parvalbumin (PV)-producing interneurons receiving this excitatory input then inhibit medium spiny neurons (MSNs) and modify their outputs. Our observations of thalamostriatal and corticostriatal appositions by immunohistochemistry for pathway-specific vesicular glutamate transporters confirmed that thalamic inputs preferentially, and cortical ones less preferentially, made apposition on proximal dendrites of PV neurons. This axodendritic organization suggests that PV neurons produce fast and reliable inhibition of MSNs in response to thalamic inputs and process excitatory inputs from motor cortices locally and plastically, possibly together with other GABAergic and dopaminergic dendritic inputs, to modulate MSN inhibition.

Free Research Field

神経解剖学