Intracranial direct electrical mapping reveals the functional architecture of the human basal ganglia

Abstract

The basal ganglia play a key role in integrating a variety of human behaviors through the cortico–basal ganglia–thalamo–cortical loops. Accordingly, basal ganglia disturbances are implicated in a broad range of debilitating neuropsychiatric disorders. Despite accumulating knowledge of the basal ganglia functional organization, the neural substrates and circuitry subserving functions have not been directly mapped in humans. By direct electrical stimulation of distinct basal ganglia regions in 35 refractory epilepsy patients undergoing stereoelectroencephalography recordings, we here offer currently the most complete overview of basal ganglia functional characterization, extending not only to the expected sensorimotor responses, but also to vestibular sensations, autonomic responses, cognitive and multimodal effects. Specifically, some locations identified responses weren’t predicted by the model derived from large-scale meta-analyses. Our work may mark an important step toward understanding the functional architecture of the human basal ganglia and provide mechanistic explanations of non-motor symptoms in brain circuit disorders.