The limbic basal-ganglia-thalamocortical circuit and goal-directed behavior

Depue and Collins's model of incentive-motivational modulation of goal- directed behavior subserved by a medial orbital prefrontal cortical (MOC) network is appealing, but it leaves several questions unanswered: How are the stimuli that elicit an incentive motivational state selected? How does the incentive motivational state created by the MOC network modulate behavior? What is the function of the dopaminergic input to the striatum? This commentary suggests possible answers, based on the open-interconnected model of basal-ganglia-thalamocortical circuits, in which the limbic circuit selects goals and, via its connections with the motor and the associative circuits, directs behavior according to those goals, elaborating on the role of dopamine.