Volume 877, Issue 1 p. 339-367

The Basal Forebrain Corticopetal System Revisited

L. ZABORSZKY

Corresponding Author

L. ZABORSZKY

Center for Molecular and Behavioral Neuroscience, Newark, New Jersey

Address for correspondence: Laszlo Zaborszky, M.D., Ph.D., Center for Molecular and Behavioral Neuroscience, Rutgers Univeristy, 197 University Ave., Newark, NJ 07102, USA. Voice: 973-353-1080 ext. 3181; fax: 973-353-1272; [email protected]Search for more papers by this author
K. PANG

K. PANG

Department of Psychology, Bowling Green State University, Bowling Green, Ohio

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J. SOMOGYI

J. SOMOGYI

Flinders University, Faculty of Health Sciences, Bedford Park, Australia

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Z. NADASDY

Z. NADASDY

Center for Neural Computation, The Hebrew University, Jerusalem, Israel

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I. KALLO

I. KALLO

Department of Anatomy, King's College London, United Kingdom

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First published: 06 February 2006
Citations: 194

Abstract

ABSTRACT: The medial septum, diagonal bands, ventral pallidum, substantia innominata, globus pallidus, and internal capsule contain a heterogeneous population of neurons, including cholinergic and noncholinergic (mostly GABA containing), corticopetal projection neurons, and interneurons. This highly complex brain region, which constitutes a significant part of the basal forebrain has been implicated in attention, motivation, learning, as well as in a number of neuropsychiatric disorders, such as Alzheimer's disease, Parkinson's disease, and schizophrenia. Part of the difficulty in understanding the functions of the basal forebrain, as well as the aberrant information-processing characteristics of these disease states lies in the fact that the organizational principles of this brain area remained largely elusive. On the basis of new anatomical data, it is proposed that a large part of the basal forebrain corticopetal system be organized into longitudinal bands. Considering the topographic organization of cortical afferents to different divisions of the prefrontal cortex and a similar topographic projection of these prefrontal areas to basal forebrain regions, it is suggested that several functionally segregated cortico-prefronto-basal forebrain-cortical circuits exist. It is envisaged that such specific “triangular” circuits could amplify selective attentional processing in posterior sensory cortical areas.