Abstract
The experimental study of the human brain has important restrictions, particularly in the case of basal ganglia, subcortical centers whose activity can be recorded with fMRI methods but cannot be directly modified. Similar restrictions occur in other complex systems such as those studied by Earth system science. The present work studied the cause/effect relationships between human basal ganglia with recently introduced methods to study climate dynamics. Data showed an exhaustive (identifying basal ganglia interactions regardless of their linear, non-linear or complex nature) and selective (avoiding spurious relationships) view of basal ganglia activity, showing a fast functional reconfiguration of their main centers during the execution of voluntary motor tasks. The methodology used here offers a novel view of the human basal ganglia which expands the perspective provided by the classical basal ganglia model and may help to understand BG activity under normal and pathological conditions.
Highlights
The experimental study of the human brain has important restrictions, in the case of basal ganglia, subcortical centers whose activity can be recorded with fMRI methods but cannot be directly modified
Similar handicaps are present in other complex systems such as those studied by the Earth system science, and where the variables involved in their functional dynamics can be monitored but not experimentally manipulated
The non-parametric and model-free methods allow the detection of nonlinear relationships in complex systems, but they are based on weaker theoretical results
Summary
The experimental study of the human brain has important restrictions, in the case of basal ganglia, subcortical centers whose activity can be recorded with fMRI methods but cannot be directly modified. There is a growing interest to develop mathematical frameworks suitable for studying the cause/effect relationship of these complex systems by analyzing the time-series generated by the activity of their components These methods, which began with the seminal studies of Wiener and Granger (1950s–1960s), have evolved r apidly[6,7,8,9,10,11,12,13], and are being used successfully for the study of several climate signals and the dependence between them[8]. The present work uses the causation analysis developed to study the climate and other complex systems that cannot be experimentally manipulated to study the functional relationships of the human BGmC with fcMRI recordings
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