A Biologically Inspired Computational Model of Basal Ganglia in Action Selection

Figure 4

Temporal activity of the neurons in each structure of the whole network in a situation of strong conflict in the cortex, red dashed line with no STN, blue solid line with STN. The red signals of the cortex underline that 3 strong candidate actions in competition are quickly provided with basal ganglia feedback, being the STN off. All the corresponding 3 neurons of the thalamus are disinhibited, and the neurons of the cortex rapidly reach high levels of activation, so all the 3 are simultaneously gated. The blue signals underline that, in the presence of STN, just a single neuron of the cortex reaches the high value and is gated: the initial state of conflict is evident in the energy function. The activity of the STN initially rises, temporarily stopping basal ganglia feedback until the conflict within the cortex is solved. As a consequence, the basal ganglia provide slower but correct feedback, allowing only 1 response to be gated.