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The Journal of Neuroscience, December 26, 2007, 27(52):14434-14441; doi:10.1523/JNEUROSCI.1595-07.2007

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Behavioral/Systems/Cognitive
Task-Related Interaction between Basal Ganglia and Cortical Dopamine Release

Gaëtan Garraux,^1,3,4 Philippe Peigneux,³ Richard E. Carson,² and Mark Hallett¹

¹Human Motor Control Section, National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke and ²Positron Emission Tomography Department, Clinical Center, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, Maryland 20892, and ³Cyclotron Research Center and ⁴Department of Neurology, University of Liège, B-4000 Liège, Belgium

Correspondence should be addressed to Dr. Mark Hallett, Human Motor Control Section, National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, National Institutes of Health, Building 10, Room 5N226, 10 Center Drive, MSC 1428, Bethesda, MD 20892-1428. Email: hallettm{at}ninds.nih.gov

Dopamine (DA) is a powerful neuromodulator for a wide variety of behaviors. Considerable evidence accumulated from rodent and monkey experiments over the last two decades suggests that DA activity in the frontal cortex is reciprocally linked to that in functionally related basal ganglia (BG) structures. However, the functional importance of this in humans is still unknown. To address this issue, we measured endogenous DA release using positron emission tomography in 15 healthy subjects as they practiced the first training session of a finger sequence learning task. Significant results were observed not only in striatal areas but also in extrastriatal "motor" regions, bilaterally. Faster learning was specifically coupled to lower DA release in the sensorimotor part of the globus pallidus pars interna (GPi) contralateral to the moving hand, which was paralleled by a higher increase in DA levels in the pre-supplementary motor area (pre-SMA). This finding provides original evidence supporting a motor-learning-related interaction between DA release in left GPi and pre-SMA, a mechanism that may also apply to other anatomically and functionally interconnected BG and frontal cortical areas as a function of behavior.

Key words: dopamine; PET; ¹¹C-raclopride; pallidum; SMA; motor skill learning

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Received April 10, 2007; revised Oct. 23, 2007; accepted Oct. 25, 2007.

Correspondence should be addressed to Dr. Mark Hallett, Human Motor Control Section, National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, National Institutes of Health, Building 10, Room 5N226, 10 Center Drive, MSC 1428, Bethesda, MD 20892-1428. Email: hallettm{at}ninds.nih.gov

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