Seminal animal and human work has shown how striatal and prefrontal cortical regions shape goal-directed behavior 7, 27, 37, 38, 44. Using single-unit recordings in monkeys, Pasupathy & Miller 45 demonstrated that when flexibly learning a set of reward contingencies, very early activity in the striatum provides the foundation for reward-based associations, whereas later, more deliberative prefrontal mechanisms are engaged to maintain the behavioral outputs that can optimize the greatest gains, these findings have been replicated in lesion studies 46–48. A role for the striatum in early temporal coding of reward contingencies prior to the onset of activation in prefrontal regions has also been extended to humans 49. These findings suggest that understanding the interactions between regions (along with their component functions); within frontostriatal circuitry is critical for developing a model of cognitive and motivational control in adolescence.
