Corticostriatal foundations of habits

Much of our daily behavior is based on habit. This article reviews recent advances in understanding the corticostriatal system's role in habit learning and representation. New methods have led to a better understanding of how striatal circuitry (particularly the direct and indirect basal ganglia pathways) underlies habit learning. Research has established the critical role of perceptual processing in habit learning and has raised the intriguing possibility that some attentional mechanisms are habitual. Habit learning is only one of several mechanisms for acquiring appropriate behaviors; we can now better characterize when habit learning will predominate, and how habit and other learning mechanisms interact.