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The critical role played by the basal ganglia in the pathogenesis of various movement disorders such as Parkinson's and Huntington's diseases has been known for many years.  Recent studies have indicated that the neural networks of the basal ganglia participate in everyday complex behaviors that require coordination between cognition, motivation and movements.

Our research is therefore aimed at both directions. First, we try to provide better understanding of the role and way of action of the basal ganglia-cortical networks in normal behavior, and secondly we are studying these networks following the induction of clinical disorders such as Parkinson's disease and dyskinesia.

Our group is the only group worldwide that has been able to record the simultaneous activity of several neurons in the basal ganglia of awake, normal, Parkinsonian and dyskinetic monkeys and to combine this data with insights from the field of neural networks and computational neuroscience. Our belief is that only through such broad and interdisciplinary understanding we will be able to provide better methods for diagnosis, follow-up and therapy of these common devastating human diseases.

Exclusively for lab members: Go to the Links section and enter our Journal club resources folder.

Bergman H., Wichmann T. and DeLong M.R. Reversal of Experimental Parkinsonism by Lesions of the Subthalamic Nucleus. Science. 249: 1436-1438, 1990 [PDF]

Nini A, Feingold A, Slovin H and Bergman H. Neurons in the globus pallidus do not show correlated activity in the normal monkey, but phase-locked oscillations appear in the MPTP model of parkinsonism. J. of Neurophysiology, 74(4):1800-5, 1995 [PDF]

A. Raz, E. Vaadia and H. Bergman. Firing patterns and correlations of spontaneous discharge of pallidal neurons in the normal and tremulous MPTP Vervet model of Parkinsonism. J. of Neuroscience, 20(22): 8559-8571, 2000 [PDF]

Izhar Bar-Gad, Genela Morris and Hagai Bergman, Information processing, dimensionality reduction and reinforcement learning in the basal ganglia; Progress in Neurobiology, 71(6): 439-473, 2003 [PDF]

Genela Morris, David Arkadir, Alon Nevet, Eilon Vaadia and Hagai Bergman, Coincident but distinct messages of midbrain dopamine and striatal tonically active neurons, Neuron, 43: 133-143, 2004 [PDF]

Joshua M, Adler A, Prut Y, Vaadia E, Wickens JR and Bergman H Synchronization of midbrain dopaminergic neurons is enhanced by rewarding events. Neuron. 62:695-704, 2009.

Zaidel, A, Spivak A, Grieb B, Bergman H, Israel Z. Subthalamic span of beta oscillations predicts deep brain stimulation efficacy for patients with Parkinson's disease. Brain. 133:2007-21, 2010

Boris Rosin, Maya Slovik, Rea Mitelman, Michal Rivlin-Etzion, Suzanne N. Haber, Zvi Israel, Eilon Vaadia and Hagai Bergman. Closed-Loop Deep Brain Stimulation Is Superior in Ameliorating Parkinsonism. Neuron. 72(2):370-384, 2011.



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