Dr. Adriana Alcantara.
Photo by Violeta Chen.
The Basal Ganglia is an important aspect of the ability for movement. It influences movements by monitoring somatosensory informations and the movements planned and executed by the motor cortex. The Basal Ganglia 'enforces the expected exteroceptive consequences of movements in progress.' Exteroceptive means it is influenced by stimuli of the outside world as opposed to stimuli from within the body. Examples of external stimuli are: heat, touch and temperature. Through its pathways, it selects and maintains purposeful motor activity and suppresses useless or unwanted patterns of movement. It also is involved in posture and support by helping monitor and coordinate sustained contractions. These functions are not carried out by direct influence on efferent fibers, but instead by modifying ongoing activity in motor pathways.
Human brain scans and animal studies have linked working memory, a critical function that goes awry in schizophrenia, to a brain region called the prefrontal cortex. When extreme dysfuntions play out in the cognitive areas of the basal ganglia and related brain areas, such as the prefrontal cortex, the result can be schizophrenia, according to UT Austin scientist Dr. Adriana Alcantara. For years, the severe disturbances in thinking, social behavior and emotion associated with schizophrenia, which affects two million Americans, were attributed to some personality flaw or demon. Many felt the disease could not be treated. That's changed in recent decades as scientists have begun to learn what goes wrong in the brains of schizophrenic patients.
