Talk:Striatum

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It's not the case that the list of things that activate the striatum is based on a single study. Zink et al's contribution is only the suggestion, backed up with fMRI evidence, that the linking property is saliency. The other activating stimuli come from a string of different researchers. seglea 07:43, 24 May 2004 (UTC)

"Corpus striatum" and "striatum"
"Corpus striatum" is the same as "striatum", right? I just changed corpus striatum to redirect here instead of to basal ganglia, and just wanted to make sure this was correct. /skagedal[talk] 00:11, 24 February 2006 (UTC)
 * The corpus striatum is actually the basal ganglia and internal capsule together. For now I just had it redirecting to the BG, but I'll make the corpus striatum page more clear. S  e  miconscious  •  talk  02:48, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

Corpus striatum is an old term (XVII century)comprising a lot of elements including thalamus, subthalamus and so on. C. and O. Vogt (1941) proposed to restrict the term in striatum for describing only what is striatal (composed of the above mentioned neuronal types). The term corpus striatum should no more be used.--Gerard.percheron 12:09, 6 August 2006 (UTC)G.percheron

Searching Braininfo yielded the following three matches:
 * (per Savel'ev, same as basal ganglia)
 * (per Zilles, same as striatum) --Arcadian 05:27, 24 February 2006 (UTC)
 * (per Zilles, same as striatum) --Arcadian 05:27, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

I think there might be too much redundant information between striatum and primate basal ganglia MisterSheik 16:00, 9 November 2006 (UTC)


 * The neuroanatomy text book Neuroanatomy -an illustrated colour text 3rd edition by Crossman and Neary states that the Corpus striatum includes the Neostriatum (which is the Caudate and Putamen) and the Paleostriatum (Globus pallidus).--89.168.28.19 (talk) 14:51, 30 December 2009 (UTC)

Other sources tell me that the Corpus striatum only includes the Neostriatum (Caudate nucleus and Putamen) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 195.194.184.9 (talk) 13:52, 23 February 2011 (UTC)

Adding to WikiProject Neuroscience
The striatum is part of the basal ganglia, which functions as an integrated system. The most useful way to handle this article would be to restrict it to a detailed examination of the anatomy and physiology of the striatum (which are very complex), but to point the reader to basal ganglia for explanations of function. Looie496 (talk) 03:25, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

"Targets" section
This section is extremely difficult to read and understand. I was going to try and clean it up, but I can't understand from the text what the striatum projects to. I need to do some research on all of this anyway, so if all goes well, I will update the section with clearer text. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Oznozz (talk • contribs) 23:47, 12 November 2009 (UTC)
 * Yes, I agree. I was the one who tagged it, and I had a hard time making any sense of it at all (and I have done research in that field professionally!). I have a feeling this page may need quite a bit of rewriting from scratch. Thanks for working on it. --Tryptofish (talk) 00:00, 13 November 2009 (UTC)
 * The basal ganglia article describes the connections a bit more clearly, I think, although it lacks references. (Which is my fault!)  The bottom line is that the striatum projects exclusively to other parts of the basal ganglia:  the two parts of the pallidum, and the two parts of the substantia nigra.  The circuit diagram in the basal ganglia article might be helpful here. Looie496 (talk) 00:26, 13 November 2009 (UTC)

Toric Topology?
I deleted the phrase about to toric topology, as I was unable to find any evidence of the validity of the statement. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Primate_basal_ganglia_system#Striatum_Topology for more details. Oznozz (talk) 23:24, 31 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Fine, no problem. --Tryptofish (talk) 20:22, 1 April 2010 (UTC)

"Organisation" section
The divisions of the striatum into dorsal and ventral sections might be more clear cut in the primate (I'm studying rat neuroanatomy), but I was under the impression it isn't certain in rodents. Some of the text may be talking about primate anatomy, but as far as I understand it, the reference cited for "the dorsal striatum is closed and continuous" a) is rodents and b) is all about how there isn't a clear consistent boundary between the two, and different methods of classifying the striatum put the boundary in different places. I'd like to help out on this article (and probably WikiProjects Neuroscience) but as people were saying in the "Targets" section above, it might need a rewrite. Keepstherainoff (talk) 09:03, 16 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Any help at all would be most welcome. Please don't worry about making it perfect, because the way things work here, whatever you get started will likely get picked up on by other editors (probably including me, in this case). --Tryptofish (talk) 18:17, 16 July 2010 (UTC)
 * IIRC, ventral striatum can be identified in rats as well, through innervation from orbitofrontal cortex. I can understand some debate (some people object to rat OFC in itself) but AFAIK the literature is moving towards an OFC-VS connection. In any case, I agree the section needs a rewrite and I would really like to do so, but maybe it makes sense to make it a collaborative effort, connecting those with knowledge on either anatomical, physiological or cognitive aspects. This could add to the piece being coherent - do contact me on my talk page in case you're interested in scheduling such an effort. --tijmz (talk) 22:25, 18 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Please just jump in with whatever you can offer. It can't help but be an improvement. As for scheduling anything with me, it tends to be a losing battle. --Tryptofish (talk) 22:42, 18 June 2011 (UTC)

Merger proposal
I just realized that Corpus striatum is another page dealing with the same subject as this one (despite the hatnote here). I suggest that we merge the other page into this one. Thoughts? --Tryptofish (talk) 15:54, 28 November 2010 (UTC)

It is reasonable, but one should keep in mind that striatum= caudate n. + putamen, whereas corpus striatum= caudate n. + lentiform n. (putamen + globus pallidus) Mixmavros (talk) 09:40, 3 January 2011 (UTC)


 * It's been done. Thanks to the other editor who did it. --Tryptofish (talk) 19:28, 8 March 2011 (UTC)

96% of the neurons?
Does anyone have a reference for the assertion that 96% of neurons in the striatum are medium spiny neurons? (Medium spiny neurons so called due to the presence of spines on the dendrites, and making up 96% of the striatum.)? I've been trying to check this up for a couple of days. The numbers differ for different species - over 95% in rats and mice, and 75-80% in primates (e.g. Chapter 1, of Tepper J.M., Abercrombie E.D. and Bolam J.P. (eds), GABA and the Basal Ganglia: From Molecules to Systems, Progress in Brain Research Vol 160, Elsevier B.V., 2007. I've also seen "These GABAergic (GABA is γ-aminobutyric acid) cells are the most populous neuronal cell type of the striatum (90–95% in rats and over 85% in humans)" in Kelly C.M., Dunnett S.B. and Rosser A.E., Medium spiny neurons for transplantation in Huntington’s disease, Biochem. Soc. Trans. (2009) 37, 323–328; doi:10.1042/BST0370323. But nowhere have I seen a value of over 90% for humans.

Perhaps it would be an idea to split off the values for different species and give citations for each?

Baratron (talk) 06:19, 30 November 2010 (UTC)


 * Makes sense. I think there must be recent anatomy reviews that would be better sources than either of those, but if the literature backs up a major difference, our article should probably make it clear. Looie496 (talk) 18:01, 30 November 2010 (UTC)
 * I agree. --Tryptofish (talk) 23:31, 30 November 2010 (UTC)

Division of Striatum by Internal Capsule
I was thinking about how the opening paragraph describes: a division of the striatum by internal capsule into caudate nucleus and putamen. This seems to ignore the globus pallidus (interna & externa). So should it say something like, "striatum divided by white matter called internal capsule into two sectors called the Caudate Nucleus and Lentiform Body (putamen and globus palladus)"? Savonnn (talk) 17:56, 26 April 2011 (UTC)
 * That's a tough question, as it gets into the byzantine complexities of nomenclature of this subject. Most sources agree that the globus pallidus is part of the basal ganglia, but it gets murkier as to whether it is part of the striatum. Of course this leaves us with a lentiform nucleus that is made up of the putamen (a part of the striatum) and the globus pallidus (which may or may not be). Some sources even treat the internal and external parts of the globus pallidus differently. --Tryptofish (talk) 18:25, 26 April 2011 (UTC)
 * You're totally right. I was in a different part of my notes later that day and realized the GPi & GPe aren't considered part of the striatum.  Thanks for considering my question.  Savonnn (talk) 18:19, 28 April 2011 (UTC)
 * You are very welcome! --Tryptofish (talk) 20:51, 28 April 2011 (UTC)

"Corpus Striatum"
From pg. 743 of Neuroanatomy through Clinical Cases by Bluemenfeld, corpus striatum is not used to include the globus pallidus. Although closely related, the corpus striatum is used only to refer to the caudate and putamen. The way the last sentence of the first paragraph is phrased, makes it seem that the definition of corpus striatum includes the globus pallidus. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Dl615 (talk • contribs) 21:52, 29 January 2013 (UTC)
 * This terminology is such a hash that even experts get confused. I would not accept any single source as authoritative, even if it is a good medical textbook. Looie496 (talk) 22:35, 29 January 2013 (UTC)
 * I think that the change from "sometimes" to "occasionally" in describing this use of the term is confusing, and doesn't really add any value. Are there any objections to changing it back? --Tryptofish (talk) 23:42, 29 January 2013 (UTC)

Copyright problem
I have found an important copyright problem in the article. It has been there for almost two years. On March 2011 User talk:FrozenMan | added 4000k of text (the biggest addition up to date). In May 2012 some copyright problems were found as seen in his talk page. I do not know if they were solved. I have found further problems since lots of text have been copied from "The Role of the Dorsal Striatum in Reward and Decision-Making--Bernard W. Balleine, Mauricio R. Delgado, Okihide Hikosaka". This probably indicates the full contribution by the user is tainted. Since the copyright problems have been here for so long not sure on how to act.

Bests.--Garrondo (talk) 11:35, 11 April 2013 (UTC)


 * After checking, I agree with you, and I've removed the chunk of material he added. It was isolated from the rest of the article and has hardly been changed in the meantime, so not too difficult.  Thanks for pointing this out. Looie496 (talk) 14:40, 11 April 2013 (UTC)
 * Great. --Garrondo (talk) 14:56, 11 April 2013 (UTC)

No mention at all of ventral striatum
According to the ventral striatum article, the ventral striatum certainly is a part of the striatum, and consists of the nucleus accumbens and the olfactory tubercle. But I have not seen a source mention the nucleus accumbens defined directly as a part of the striatum. The striatum article does not mention the ventral striatum, nor the nucleus accumbens. I think that article should make the relationship between the two entities clear. — Preceding unsigned comment added by James Gabriel II (talk • contribs) 19:08, 16 October 2013 (UTC)

Proposed merge with Ventral striatum
Already suggested and supported on talk page - easily accommodated on target page Iztwoz (talk) 22:30, 22 February 2017 (UTC)
 * Support readily mergable, already mentioned several times in article itself. Reduces needless fragmentation and helps readers. --Tom (LT) (talk) 22:01, 24 February 2017 (UTC)

This article has a mix of erroneous, obsolete, and obsolescent nomenclature
The various terms used in this article for the striatum and associated structures provide a confusing mess of accurate information, outdated information, and wrong information. Correcting and adequately sourcing the corrections will be a significant undertaking.

Here are some things I notice:

1. The article gives "neostriatum" as a synonym for the striatum. This is incorrect and I am not aware of any authors who use the term "neostriatum" in this way.


 * All searches show that the neostratium is often shortened to the striatum. --Iztwoz (talk) 15:49, 17 January 2018 (UTC)

2. Some neuroscientists use the term "neostriatum" as a synonym for "dorsal striatum." I am not aware of any anatomists who persist in this terminology. The term "neostriatum" is used to contrast with the "paleostriatum," representing the hypothesis that these structures arose at different times in evolutionary history. This hypothesis has been invalidated over the last 30 years of comparative neuroanatomy research. While some authors, particularly those who do no comparative research, continue to use these terms, they are obsolescent, as a Google Scholar search for the number of hits for "dorsal striatum" versus "neostriatum" reveals. They merit discussion in this article, but not highlighting as equivalent in status to the canonical terminology. If there is still a significant number of working neuroanatomists who use the term "neostriatum," it would be good to have a reference demonstrating that, but I suspect the term is used primarily by neuroscientists whose focus is not anatomy.


 * Can find no reference to these usages on the page. ?--Iztwoz (talk) 17:12, 17 January 2018 (UTC)

3. I am not familiar with any current researchers who would use the term "corpus striatum" to mean the striatum and globus pallidus together. The citation in this article is from Carpenter 1983. There may be some researchers who do use the term in this way, but a more up-to-date citation is required. My understanding of the terminology is that "striatum" and "corpus striatum" are synonymous. The striatum and globus pallidus are distinct structures, with distinct developmental origins, adult cell types, and gene expression patterns, and it makes very little sense to lump them together under one term, other than as part of the systems term "basal ganglia" which highlights their strong interconnections with each other and the thalamus and midbrain.

4. "In birds the striatum is called the paleostriatum augmentatum." This is no longer accurate since the Avian Brain Nomenclature Forum in 2002. The avian neuroscience community has fully adopted the new terminology for the avian brain, which better reflects known homologies with the mammalian brain. In birds, the striatum is called the striatum (though for birds it also includes elements of the pallidum, as these cells migrate into the striatum during development). The abandoning of the term "neostriatum" in the avian literature reflects the understanding among comparative neuroanatomists that this term does not map onto any coherent model of brain anatomy, evolution, or function, in birds or mammals.

As I said, sourcing corrections for this article will not be trivial, and I don't know if or when I will be able to do so. But it is at least important to recognize that the nomenclature in this article has numerous issues at present. Geoff (talk) 17:29, 7 January 2018 (UTC)


 * Thanks Geoff it's good to have these things pointed out for editors to look at.--Iztwoz (talk) 11:38, 8 January 2018 (UTC)


 * Yeah. Let me add that the goal should be to have a reasonably simple account that will put a modern-day moderately educated reader on the right track. Looie496 (talk) 17:10, 17 January 2018 (UTC)

Globus Pallidus?
Is the globus pallidus part of the striatum? It was my understanding it was not.

90.241.90.17 (talk) 13:45, 6 April 2018 (UTC)

Striped appearance: where is it striped?
Where exactly does the "striped (striated) appearance of grey-and-white matter" manifest? Is it on a surface of one or more of the parts of the striatum, or between some parts of the striatum? The reason I ask is I have from somewhere a mental visualization of splayed 'connections' (multiple 'fibers', like the fingers of the hand) between the 'inner' periphery of the caudate nucleus (maybe all around it? or just from its 'head' and/or 'body'?) and the 'outer' periphery of the putamen, through which splayed portions of the internal capsule pass, from the cerebral peduncle on through to the corona radiata, with those splayed 'connections' between the parts of the striatum giving, perhaps, its 'striped' appearance. But I can't find anywhere any source picture for that presumption and mental image. And I think I've read that those splayed connections of the striatum, if they exist, are grey matter, not white matter? UnderEducatedGeezer (talk) 00:26, 28 July 2018 (UTC)
 * It's internal. It's not separate interspersed fibers, it's layers of parallel fibers, internal to the divisions shown in red, not on the surface, because the article mentions stained sections. Staining would reveal the striata (otherwise you would see 'polka dots' instead of stripes in the sections), while the MRI sections are at a resolution which only reveal the outlines of the 3 divisions shown in red. --Ancheta Wis   (talk  &#124; contribs) 03:13, 28 July 2018 (UTC) Have you seen Striatopallidal fibres. 03:17, 28 July 2018 (UTC)
 * Thank you so much for responding Ancheta Wis! I had looked some more for pictures of the 'separate interspersed fibers' that I was referring to (and thanks also for better words to describe what I meant!) and found some, here: https://image.slidesharecdn.com/internalcapsulestructureorientationnervetracts-150406101547-conversion-gate01/95/brain-internal-capsule-structure-orientation-tracts-sanjoy-sanyal-9-638.jpg?cb=1428542180 ,
 * and here: http://www.learnneurosurgery.com/uploads/1/6/6/8/16689668/2408437_orig.png?647 ,
 * and here: https://i.pinimg.com/736x/1c/1c/61/1c1c610b70a399eb5efa7c6411d579c9--internal-capsule-medical-science.jpg, although the first two do not show the internal capsule (which name does seem to suggest a unitary structure) going through where I thought (between caudate nucleus & putamen), and the third seems to show ic going medial to globus pallidus. But thank you again for answering, & so quickly, too! I did look at your reference Striatopallidal fibres, though I do have difficulty imagining how exactly the two structures connect like that, as I tend to see brain structures as 'distinct' & separate, rather than 'mushed' together; I'm just trying to learn brain anatomy via mostly internet resources, with some 3D brain atlas software & the odd past edition textbooks I find both online & paperback. UnderEducatedGeezer (talk) 04:40, 29 July 2018 (UTC)

Etymology (Latin) striatus = groove, striatum = having parallel lines or grooves on the surface
Striated is apparently a word that is used thus known in English language, so that's why the authors didn't feel a need to explain the origin of the name. As a non-native yet fluent English speaker, I've never come across this word, so I think it would be good to follow the custom of adding a reference to the origine of the name? Shall I be bold and weave it in the article? Wish me luck I won't get revoked by the guards. SvenAERTS (talk) 10:59, 10 March 2020 (UTC)
 * striatus = furrowed, grooved, fluted, striated
 * striated = having parallel lines or grooves on the surface