[Movement Control of Striatum Neural Pathway]

Striatum is the central structure controlling movement. It plays a pivotal role in the regulation of voluntary movement, unconscious movement, muscle tone, posture adjustment and fine movement. Dysfunction of striatum causes a variety of movement disorders ranging from the hypokinetic disorders with increased muscle tone, such as Parkinson's disease, to the hyperkinetic disorders with decreased muscle tone, such as Huntington's disease. It is generally recognized that striatum receives the neural movement signals from the motor cortex, and then processes and modifies these signals and subsequently transfers the signals back to the motor cortex via thalamus for execution of the movement through pyramidal system. The movement control function of striatum depends on a complex neural circuit system. In this review, the studies on the movement control function of striatum as well as the striatal neural circuit system are summarized with an emphasis on the progress made during recent years for better understanding the mechanism underlying the movement control function as well as the disease association of striatum.