Figure 4.

Temporal activity of the neurons in each structure of the whole network in a situation of strong conflict in the cortex, red dashed line with no STN, blue solid line with STN. The red signals of the cortex underline that 3 strong candidate actions in competition are quickly provided with basal ganglia feedback, being the STN off. All the corresponding 3 neurons of the thalamus are disinhibited, and the neurons of the cortex rapidly reach high levels of activation, so all the 3 are simultaneously gated. The blue signals underline that, in the presence of STN, just a single neuron of the cortex reaches the high value and is gated: the initial state of conflict is evident in the energy E function. The activity of the STN initially rises, temporarily stopping basal ganglia feedback until the conflict within the cortex is solved. As a consequence, the basal ganglia provide slower but correct feedback, allowing only 1 response to be gated.