Silencing the majority of cerebellar granule cells uncovers their essential role in motor learning and consolidation.
By Elisa Galliano, Zhenyu Gao, M. Schonewille, B. Todorov, Esther M. F. Simons, A. Pop, Egidio D'Angelo, A. M. van den Maagdenberg, Freek E. Hoebeek, C. D. De Zeeuw. 2013
155 citations recorded by the source corpus.
Cerebellar granule cells (GCs) account for more than half of all neurons in the CNS of vertebrates. Theoretical work has suggested that the abundance of GCs is advantageous for sparse coding during memory formation. Here, we minimized the output of the majority of GCs by selectively eliminating their CaV2.1 (P/Q-type) Ca(2+) channels, which mediate the bulk of their neurotransmitter release. This resulted in reduced GC output to Purkinje cells (PCs) and stellate cells (SCs) as well as in impaired long-term plasticity at GC-PC synapses. As a consequence modulation amplitude and regularity of simple spike (SS) output were affected. Surprisingly, the overall motor performance was intact, whereas demanding motor learning and memory consolidation tasks were compromised. Our findings indicate that a minority of functionally intact GCs is sufficient for the maintenance of basic motor performance, whereas acquisition and stabilization of sophisticated memories require higher numbers of normal GCs controlling PC firing.
Subfields: Endocrine and Autonomic Systems, Neurology, Sensory Systems
How researchers see this paper
The researchers whose trusted networks rank it highest, strongest advocate first. Every researcher gets a different order.
In Endocrine and Autonomic Systems
In Neurology
In Sensory Systems
Citations in the corpus
- Re-evaluating circuit mechanisms underlying pattern separation (2019, positive): “Consistent with this, a study that specifically silenced the synaptic outputs of the majority of cerebellar granule cells found that this intervention affected the acquisition and consolidation of skilled behaviours but not normal motor performance (but concomitant changes in long term plasticity co”
- Shared cortex-cerebellum dynamics in the execution and learning of a motor task (2019, unknown): “This segmentation of granule cell activity may have important effects on computation in downstream Purkinje cells (Galliano et al., 2013), which is an interesting subject for future study.”
- Network Structure within the Cerebellar Input Layer Enables Lossless Sparse Encoding (2014, background): “The idea that many GCs are required for sensory representations is supported by the finding that markedly reducing the number of functional GCs induces deficits in consolidation of motor learning (but concomitant changes in long-term plasticity could also contribute to these effects; Galliano et al.”