ABSTRACT
The basal ganglia are a set of subcortical nuclei with strong recurrent connections between the cerebral cortex, the thalamus, and the brainstem. Abnormalities in basal ganglia circuitry have been implicated in a diverse set of neurological and psychiatric disorders. This chapter reviews the reasons for studying the deep brain connectome, the current approaches for analyzing the connectome, and the potential of the deep brain connectome for advancing the surgical treatment of basal ganglia disorders. The basal ganglia consist of the caudate nucleus, the putamen, the globus pallidus, and the nucleus accumbens. Surgical interventions for basal ganglia disorders dates back to the late 1930s where resections of the caudate head were used to treat Parkinson’s disease. The “connectome” was first proposed as the “comprehensive structural description of the network of elements and connections forming the human brain” in 2005.
