Home > Putamen

A portion of the basal ganglia that forms the outermost part of the lenticular nucleus . Appears to play a role in reinforcement learning. Coextensive with the insula, which has been found to contain mirror neurons. The motor and somatosensory cortices, the intralaminarnuclei of the thalamus, and the substantia nigra project to the putamen, and the putamen projects to premotor and supplementary motor areas of cortex via the globus pallidus and thalamus. See also Medinotes, Erwin, and Dreyer.