The role of the dorsal striatum in instrumental conditioning

Abstract

This chapter is divided into three parts. In the first part, we introduce the theoretical foundation of instrumental conditioning and the commonly used methods to study it. In the second part, we review some recent work using these methods to investigate the role of the dorsal striatum in instrumental conditioning. In the third part, we describe in detail the methods and considerations in defining precise and informative experiments in operant analysis of striatal function. © 2011 Springer Science+Business Media, LLC.