Caudate nucleus | |
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![]() Caudate nucleus (in red) shown within the brain | |
![]() Transverse cut of brain (horizontal section), basal ganglia is blue | |
Details | |
Part of | Dorsal striatum |
Identifiers | |
Latin | nucleus caudatus |
MeSH | D002421 |
NeuroNames | 226 |
NeuroLex ID | birnlex_1373 |
TA98 | A14.1.09.502 |
TA2 | 5561 |
FMA | 61833 |
Anatomical terms of neuroanatomy |
The caudate nucleus is one of the structures that make up the corpus striatum, which is a component of the basal ganglia in the human brain.[1] While the caudate nucleus has long been associated with motor processes due to its role in Parkinson's disease,[2][clarification needed][3] it plays important roles in various other nonmotor functions as well, including procedural learning,[4] associative learning[5] and inhibitory control of action,[6] among other functions. The caudate is also one of the brain structures which compose the reward system and functions as part of the cortico-basal ganglia-thalamo-cortical loop.[1]
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Evidence that the caudate nucleus and putamen influence stimulus-response learning comes from lesion studies in rodents and primates and from neuroimaging studies in humans and from studies of human disease. In Parkinson disease, the dopaminergic innervation of the caudate and putamen is severely compromised by the death of dopamine neurons in the substantia nigra pars compacta (Chapter 17). Patients with Parkinson disease have normal declarative memory (unless they have a co-occurring dementia as may occur in Lewy body disease.) However, they have marked impairments of stimulus-response learning. Patients with Parkinson disease or other basal ganglia disorders such as Huntington disease (in which caudate neurons themselves are damaged) have deficits in other procedural learning tasks, such as the acquisition of new motor programs.
Functional neuroimaging in humans demonstrates activation of the prefrontal cortex and caudate nucleus (part of the striatum) in tasks that demand inhibitory control of behavior.