Loops between the basal ganglia and the cerebral cortex allow the basal ganglia to control functional connectivity in the cortex by synchronizing its rhythms.
Pouzzner, D. (2017). Control of Functional Connectivity in Cerebral Cortex by Basal Ganglia Mediated Synchronization. arXiv preprint arXiv:1708.00779.
For further reading:
Antzoulatos, E.G. and Miller, E.K. (2014) Increases in functional connectivity between the prefrontal cortex and striatum during category learning. Neuron, 83:216-225. View PDF »
Selected as one of Neuron’s Best of 2014-2015
Miller, E.K. and Buschman, T.J. (2013) Cortical circuits for the control of attention. Current Opinion in Neurobiology. 23:216–222. View PDF »
Buschman,T.J. and Miller, E.K. (2010) Shifting the Spotlight of Attention: Evidence for Discrete Computations in Cognition. Frontiers in Human Neuroscience. 4(194): 1-9. View PDF »
A model of the collaboration and distribution of function between the prefrontal cortex and parietal cortex.
Working memory and decision making in a fronto-parietal circuit model
John D Murray, Jorge H Jaramillo, Xiao-Jing Wang
doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/104802
Excellent review of an important topic: Working memory capacity. The limitation in working memory capacity is the most objective, easily measured, and tractable property of conscious thought..
Luck and Vogel (2013)
Miller Lab work cited:
Siegel, M., Warden, M.R., and Miller, E.K. (2009) Phase-dependent neuronal coding of objects in short-term memory. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 106: 21341-21346. View PDF »