Role of the basal ganglia in the control of sleep and wakefulness

•The dorsal striatum enhances wakefulness and the nucleus accumbens promotes sleep.•The external globus pallidus regulates sleep-wake behavior through cortical activation.•Adenosine A2A receptors in the nucleus accumbens shell are critical for caffeine arousal.•The nucleus accumbens has an intrinsic role in the sleep/wake regulatory network.•The motivational state is a fundamental regulator of sleep and wakefulness.

The basal ganglia (BG) act as a cohesive functional unit that regulates motor function, habit formation, and reward/addictive behaviors, but the debate has only recently started on how the BG maintain wakefulness and suppress sleep to achieve all these fundamental functions of the BG. Neurotoxic lesioning, pharmacological approaches, and the behavioral analyses of genetically modified animals revealed that the striatum and globus pallidus are important for the control of sleep and wakefulness. Here, we discuss anatomical and molecular mechanisms for sleep-wake regulation in the BG and propose a plausible model in which the nucleus accumbens integrates behavioral processes with wakefulness through adenosine and dopamine receptors.