Memory trace and timing mechanism localized to cerebellar Purkinje cells
Författare
Summary, in English
The standard view of the mechanisms underlying learning is that they involve strengthening or weakening synaptic connections. Learned response timing is thought to combine such plasticity with temporally patterned inputs to the neuron. We show here that a cerebellar Purkinje cell in a ferret can learn to respond to a specific input with a temporal pattern of activity consisting of temporally specific increases and decreases in firing over hundreds of milliseconds without a temporally patterned input. Training Purkinje cells with direct stimulation of immediate afferents, the parallel fibers, and pharmacological blocking of interneurons shows that the timing mechanism is intrinsic to the cell itself. Purkinje cells can learn to respond not only with increased or decreased firing but also with an adaptively timed activity pattern.
Avdelning/ar
Publiceringsår
2014
Språk
Engelska
Sidor
14930-14934
Publikation/Tidskrift/Serie
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
Volym
111
Issue
41
Dokumenttyp
Artikel i tidskrift
Förlag
National Academy of Sciences
Ämne
- Basic Medicine
- Neurosciences
Status
Published
Projekt
- Thinking in Time: Cognition, Communication and Learning
Forskningsgrupp
- Associative Learning
ISBN/ISSN/Övrigt
- ISSN: 1091-6490