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Neurorehabilitation of the Basal Ganglia
Master the basal ganglia's role in movement, cognition, habit, and neurological disease through advanced clinical neuroscience
Command basal ganglia neuroscience across movement, cognition, habit, and disease in this 25-credit course designed for advanced clinical practice.
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Course Description
The basal ganglia sit at the intersection of movement, emotion, cognition, and habit, yet they remain among the most clinically underutilized structures in practice. When patients present with movement disorders, postural instability, or behavioral complexity, precise basal ganglia knowledge separates reactive care from transformative clinical reasoning.
This 25-credit course delivers a systems-level command of basal ganglia anatomy, circuitry, and physiology. From dopaminergic modulation and corticostriatal plasticity to oscillatory activity and habit learning, every topic builds toward clinical application in movement, cognition, and neurological disease.
Dr. David Traster, a chiropractic neurologist specializing in functional neurology and vestibular rehabilitation, translates advanced neuroscience into clinically actionable frameworks.
What you’ll learn:
- Identify the parallel functional circuits of the basal ganglia and their clinical significance
- Apply direct and indirect pathway physiology to explain movement disorder presentations
- Interpret dopaminergic modulation of corticostriatal plasticity in habit and motor learning
- Evaluate basal ganglia contributions to cognition, emotion, and addiction neuroscience
- Design rehabilitation strategies informed by basal ganglia oscillatory and circuit dynamics
More About This Course
The basal ganglia are no longer a footnote in clinical neuroscience. Research over the past three decades has redefined these structures as central regulators of movement initiation, habit learning, reward processing, cognitive flexibility, emotional control, and postural stability. For clinicians working with complex neurological cases, basal ganglia neurorehabilitation has emerged as one of the most clinically rich and scientifically grounded areas of functional neurology practice. This course positions you precisely at that frontier.
Neurorehabilitation of the Basal Ganglia is a 25-credit, advanced clinical neuroscience course built on the comprehensive work of Dr. David Traster and grounded in current research on basal ganglia parallel processing, corticostriatal systems, dopaminergic modulation, oscillatory circuit dynamics, and the clinical presentations of movement disorders including Parkinson's disease, dystonia, chorea, and addiction. The curriculum spans evolutionary neuroscience, developmental body mapping, neural network principles, direct and indirect pathway physiology, habit memory systems, deep brain stimulation, and the role of physical exercise in basal ganglia neuroplasticity. Every topic is structured to move from mechanistic understanding toward clinical application.
What distinguishes this course is its systems-level approach. Rather than treating the basal ganglia as an isolated structure, the curriculum maps its integrative connections, including the cortico-striatal-pallido-thalamic loops, the thalamo-striatal system, the pedunculopontine nucleus, the superior colliculus, the limbic and prefrontal circuits, and the role of dopamine as both a modulator and a teaching signal. Clinicians who complete this course will understand not only what the basal ganglia does, but how it interacts with cerebellar, cortical, and brainstem systems to produce and refine behavior.
This course is designed for licensed healthcare clinicians with a foundation in neuroanatomy who are ready to advance their understanding of functional neurology, movement science, and neurorehabilitation. It is particularly relevant for chiropractic neurologists, neurological physiotherapists, rehabilitation specialists, and functional medicine practitioners whose patients present with complex motor, cognitive, or behavioral challenges that existing frameworks have not fully explained. If your clinical reasoning has ever stopped short at the level of the basal ganglia, this course removes that ceiling.
Dr. David Traster is a chiropractic neurologist with advanced training in functional neurology and vestibular rehabilitation. His approach to basal ganglia neuroscience is both anatomically rigorous and clinically translatable, bridging the gap between laboratory research and patient-centered care. His curriculum reflects the depth of a specialist and the clarity of a clinician who has worked through these frameworks at the bedside. Dr. Traster's instruction gives clinicians not just a conceptual map of the basal ganglia, but a working model they can apply immediately to assessment, differential reasoning, and rehabilitation planning.
Components
Educational Syllabus
- The Evolving Brain: Why the Basal Ganglia Are Central to Everything You Treat
- Trace the phylogenetic origins of basal ganglia circuitry from lamprey to humans and understand why these subcortical structures formed the foundation of behavioral regulation long before cortex emerged.
- Body Maps and the Sentient Self: Developmental Neuroscience of Motor Identity
- Explore the ontogenetic development of body representations from the protoself through the social body, and understand how early somatotopic mapping shapes motor learning, proprioception, and body ownership throughout life.
- Neural Network Principles That Drive Basal Ganglia Learning
- Build a working model of how neuronal assemblies, Hebbian plasticity, perceptron architecture, and corticostriatal convergence create the computational foundation for habit acquisition and motor refinement.
- Anatomy Unlocked: A Precision Map of the Basal Ganglia and Related Structures
- Master the three-dimensional relationships between the caudate, putamen, globus pallidus, subthalamic nucleus, substantia nigra, thalamus, and their key afferent and efferent connections.
- The Corticostriatal System: How the Cortex Writes to the Basal Ganglia
- Examine the topographic organization of corticostriatal projections, the distinction between PT-type and IT-type neurons, and the convergence patterns that allow the striatum to act as a cortical pattern detector.
- Dopamine Decoded: Truth and Nuance in Basal Ganglia Neuromodulation
- Move beyond oversimplified dopamine narratives to understand D1 and D2 receptor segregation, nigro-striatal volume transmission, phasic burst signaling, and dopamine's true role as a reward prediction and agency signal.
- Direct and Indirect Pathways: The Architecture of Movement Selection
- Gain a mechanistic command of how GABAergic direct and indirect striatal projections create opposing regulation of basal ganglia output, and how imbalance in these pathways produces akinesia, dyskinesia, and dystonia.
- Habit Learning and Memory: When the Basal Ganglia Take the Wheel
- Understand how the dorsal striatum mediates stimulus-response habit formation, how practice shifts behavioral control from prefrontal to subcortical systems, and why this matters for rehabilitation and patient compliance.
- Oscillations, Synchrony, and the Dysrhythmic Brain
- Explore basal ganglia oscillatory activity across ultraslow, theta, alpha, beta, and gamma ranges, and understand how dopamine loss in Parkinson's disease produces pathological beta synchrony that impairs movement initiation.
- The Prefrontal-Basal Ganglia Interface: Cognition, Sequencing, and Control
- Map the tripartite circuits connecting dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, orbitofrontal cortex, and anterior cingulate to specific striatal territories, and understand how disruption produces abulia, inflexibility, and cognitive decline.
- Movement Disorders Through a Circuit Lens: Parkinsonism, Dystonia, and Chorea
- Translate basal ganglia circuit pathophysiology directly into clinical recognition and reasoning for the major movement disorder syndromes, including the differential features of akinesia, rigidity, dystonia, chorea, and tremor.
- The Limbic Basal Ganglia: Emotion, Addiction, and Reward Architecture
- Examine how the nucleus accumbens, ventral striatum, and amygdalo-striatal connections mediate reward seeking, misery fleeing, and the progressive subversion of goal-directed behavior in addiction through incentive habit formation.
- Posture, Equilibrium, and Locomotion: The Basal Ganglia's Underestimated Role
- Understand how basal ganglia output to the pedunculopontine nucleus, superior colliculus, and brainstem reticular formation regulates postural fixation, equilibrium responses, righting reactions, and gait, with direct relevance to fall risk.
- Deep Brain Stimulation and the Science of Circuit Intervention
- Review the neurophysiological rationale for DBS targeting in Parkinson's disease, dystonia, Tourette's syndrome, OCD, and treatment-resistant depression, and understand how modulating specific circuit nodes produces broad clinical benefit.
- Exercise as Neuroplasticity: Rebuilding the Basal Ganglia Through Movement
- Examine evidence that cardiovascular fitness and coordination training drive volume-dependent plasticity in the caudate, putamen, and globus pallidus, and build a clinical rationale for exercise prescription in basal ganglia rehabilitation.
Venue, Hotels & Schedule
Also includes
Neurorehabilitation of the Basal Ganglia
Command basal ganglia neuroscience across movement, cognition, habit, and disease in this 25-credit course designed for advanced clinical practice.
$
$
(
$
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