Understanding the neurocircuitry that underlies normal and adaptive behaviors is a foundation for elucidating the pathology and pathophysiology of psychiatric diseases. The rich history of anatomical observations forms the backbone for what we now consider to be the key structures and pathways associated with aberrant behaviors and psychiatric disorders. Given the focus of psychiatry on the interface of motivation, emotion, and cognition, psychiatric neuroscience has progressively highlighted brain networks that subserve these functional domains and their interactions. The convergence of findings from the variety of techniques in animal studies to human postmortem, neurosurgical, and brain imaging methods have led to major advances that constitute the groundwork for the neurocircuitry pertinent to psychiatric diseases.
The goal of this volume is to outline the circuitries that are thought to underlie psychiatric disorders, with a particular focus on recent work in the field, as it relates to normal and abnormal behaviors. One of the first key anatomical contributions was the development of the idea that specific connected brain regions control emotion (the limbic system). Although the concept of the limbic system as originally conceptualized may be outdated, a constellation of brain structures appears to be at the core of most neuropsychiatric disorders. The key structures include the prefrontal cortex, the striatum, the hippocampus, the amygdala (including the extended amygdala), and the ascending monoaminergic modulatory transmitter systems, particularly the midbrain dopamine system. Clearly, this is not an exhaustive list, but one that is essential. . . . . . .
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