Organization of Prefrontal-Striatal Connections

This chapter describes the organization of the prefrontal-striatal projections. There exists a topographical relationship in these projections, such that sensorimotor cortices project to the dorsolateral part of the striatum, associative cortical regions to more ventral and medial regions, and the limbic cortical areas to the most ventromedial striatal areas. Whereas the parallel, segregated nature of these projections has been emphasized for a long time, more recent studies, taking into account the so-called focal and diffuse types of termination of cortical afferents in the striatum, show that there is considerable overlap between projections from different prefrontal cortical projection areas in the striatum. This allows for specific integration of information. Further, the relationship of the prefrontal cortex with the striatal compartmental structure is being discussed. Finally, it will be explained that the prefrontal-corticostriatal topography nicely lines up with the topographical organization of midline/intralaminar thalamocortical and thalamostriatal, as well as with amygdalocortical and amygdalostriatal projections, creating triangular relationships between these cortical and subcortical structures.