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Memory trace and timing mechanism localized to cerebellar Purkinje cells

Author

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.

Publishing year

2014

Language

English

Pages

14930-14934

Publication/Series

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences

Volume

111

Issue

41

Document type

Journal article

Publisher

National Academy of Sciences

Topic

  • Basic Medicine
  • Neurosciences

Status

Published

Project

  • Thinking in Time: Cognition, Communication and Learning

Research group

  • Associative Learning

ISBN/ISSN/Other

  • ISSN: 1091-6490