Motivation and emotion/Book/2026/Basal ganglia and motivation

Basal ganglia and motivation:
What is the role of the basal ganglia in motivated behaviour?

Overview

Scenario Imagine you are a university student. You have to choose between delayed gratification (study) or instant gratification (new book from favourite author) Basal ganglia processes reward info for bahaviour selection Dopaminergic influence Behaviour

Explanation of the problem, issue, or topic: Brief explanation of the problem, why it is important, and an outline of how psychological science can help

Focus questions Break the sub-title down into three to five focus questions. Align the top-level headings with these focus questions. What is the relationship between motivation and the basal ganglia? What is the relationship between the basal ganglia and dopamine? What are some potential issues if these relationships break down?

Headings

Planned additional headings:

• Motivation and motived behaviour
• The basal ganglia and motivated behaviour
• Dopamine and motivation
• Links to disorders

Key points

• Motivation and motived behaviour
  • What is motivation
  • What is motivated behaviour
  • Motivational influence on behaviour and selection
• Basal Ganglia
  • Anatomy
    • Physical organisation
    • Key regions
  • Function
    • Managing signals (behaviour and selection)
    • Responsible for movement - direct route, indirect route, hyperdirect route
  • Role in motivation and motivated behaviour (motivation + behaviour)
• Dopamine
  • Pathways

    

    Figure 1. The main dopaminergic pathways of the brain.

  • Reward circuit
  • Substantia niagra (Ikemoto et al., 2015)
  • Biases go circuit (damage linked to Parkinson's)
  • Link to Basal Ganglia and motivation/motivated behaviour
• Links to disorders
  • Parkinson's disease
    • Linked to basal ganglia and dopamine
    • Cognitive deficits in executive function
  • ADHD (Shaw et al., 2014)

1

Parkinson's disease is linked to damage in the Mesocortical pathway

	True
	False

2

Parkinson's disease is linked to damage in the Mesolimbic pathway

	True
	False

3

Parkinson's disease is linked to damage in the Tuberoinfundibular pathway

	True
	False

4

Parkinson's disease is linked to damage in the Nigrostriatal pathway

	True
	False

Conclusion

• Arguably the most important section
• Provide at least three bullet-points for this section even at the topic development stage, based on preliminary thinking
• For the book chapter, develop clear take-home message(s) that address the focus questions based on psychological theory and research
• Together, the Overview and Conclusion should summarise the problem, its significance, and how psychological science contributes to understanding and addressing this problem
• Recommended length: 150 to 330 words

Suggestions for this section: What is the answer to the sub-title question based on psychological theory and research? What are the answers to the focus questions? What are the practical, take-home messages?

See also

• Basal ganglia and motivation (Book chapter, 2023)
• Dopaminergic pathways (Wikipedia)

Suggestions for this section: Link to the most relevant internal resources about the topic Include the source in parentheses

References

Berridge, K. C. (2007). The debate over dopamine’s role in reward: The case for incentive salience. Psychopharmacology, 191(3), 391–431. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00213-006-0578-x

Berridge, K. C., & Robinson, T. E. (2016). Liking, wanting, and the incentive-sensitization theory of addiction. American Psychologist, 71(8), 670–679. https://doi.org/10.1037/amp0000059

Bromberg-Martin, E. S., Matsumoto, M., & Hikosaka, O. (2010). Dopamine in motivational control: Rewarding, aversive, and alerting. Neuron, 68(5), 815–834. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuron.2010.11.022

Da Cunha C, Gomez-A A, Blaha CD. The role of the basal ganglia in motivated behavior. Rev Neurosci. 2012;23(5-6):747-67. doi: 10.1515/revneuro-2012-0063. PMID: 23079510.

Dudman, J. T., & Krakauer, J. W. (2016). The basal ganglia: from motor commands to the control of vigor. Current opinion in neurobiology, 37, 158-166.

Hikosaka, O., Bromberg-Martin, E., Hong, S., & Matsumoto, M. (2014). Multi-level control of reward-guided behavior by the basal ganglia. Nature Reviews Neuroscience, 15(8), 641–654. https://doi.org/10.1038/nrn3789

Ikemoto S, Yang C, Tan A. Basal ganglia circuit loops, dopamine and motivation: A review and enquiry. Behav Brain Res. 2015 Sep 1;290:17-31. doi: 10.1016/j.bbr.2015.04.018. Epub 2015 Apr 20. PMID: 25907747; PMCID: PMC4447603.

Kim, H. F., & Hikosaka, O. (2015). Parallel basal ganglia circuits for voluntary and automatic behaviour to reach rewards. Brain, 138(7), 1776-1800.

Salamone, J. D., Yohn, S. E., López-Cruz, L., San Miguel, N., & Correa, M. (2018). Activational and effort-related aspects of motivation: Neural mechanisms and implications for psychopathology. Brain, 141(2), 331–345. https://doi.org/10.1093/brain/awx268

Schultz, W. Reward functions of the basal ganglia. J Neural Transm 123, 679–693 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00702-016-1510-0

Shaw P, De Rossi P, Watson B, Wharton A, Greenstein D, Raznahan A, Sharp W, Lerch JP, Chakravarty MM. Mapping the development of the basal ganglia in children with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder. J Am Acad Child Adolesc Psychiatry. 2014 Jul;53(7):780-9.e11. doi: 10.1016/j.jaac.2014.05.003. Epub 2014 May 20. PMID: 24954827; PMCID: PMC10461726.

Yin, H. H., & Knowlton, B. J. (2006). The role of the basal ganglia in habit formation. Nature Reviews Neuroscience, 7(6), 464–476. https://doi.org/10.1038/nrn1919

External links

External links to highly relevant resources such as podcasts and videos, news articles, and professional sites. Use sentence casing and alphabetical order. For example:

• Six top tips for writing a great essay (University of Melbourne)
• The importance of structure (skillsyouneed.com)

Suggestions for this section: Link to the most relevant external resources about the topic Include the source in parentheses after the link