Caudate nucleus

The caudate nucleus is one of the structures that make up the corpus striatum, which is part of the basal ganglia in the human brain. Although the caudate nucleus has long been associated with motor processes because of its relation to Parkinson's disease and Huntington's disease, it also plays important roles in nonmotor functions, such as procedural learning, associative learning, and inhibitory control of action. The caudate is also one of the brain structures that compose the reward system, and it functions as part of the cortico-basal ganglia-thalamo-cortical loop. In a study of the cingulate gyrus in monkeys, it was found that the two cingulates form a network including the caudate nucleus, the claustrum, the thalamic nuclei (AM AV LD), the lateral prefrontal cortex and the posterior parietal cortex.