Cerebellar modules operate at different frequencies
- Erasmus MC, Netherlands
- Netherlands Institute for Neuroscience, Netherlands
Abstract
Due to the uniform cyto-architecture of the cerebellar cortex, its overall physiological characteristics have traditionally been considered to be homogeneous. Here we show in awake mice at rest that spiking activity of Purkinje cells, the sole output cells of the cerebellar cortex, differs between cerebellar modules and correlates with their expression of the glycolytic enzyme aldolase C or zebrin. Simple spike and complex spike frequencies were significantly higher in Purkinje cells located in zebrin-negative than zebrin-positive modules. The difference in simple spike frequency persisted when the synaptic input to, but not intrinsic activity of, Purkinje cells was manipulated. Blocking TRPC3, the effector channel of a cascade of proteins that have zebrin-like distribution patterns, attenuated the simple spike frequency difference. Our results indicate that zebrin-discriminated cerebellar modules operate at different frequencies, which depends on activation of TRPC3, and that this property is relevant for all cerebellar functions.
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Ethics
Animal experimentation: The experiments performed in this study were approved by the local animal ethical committee ("Dier Experimenten Commissie", DEC).
Copyright
© 2014, Zhou et al.
This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use and redistribution provided that the original author and source are credited.
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Cerebellar modules operate at different frequencies
eLife 3:e02536.
https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.02536
Further reading
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- Neuroscience
Although the wiring of the cerebellar cortex appears to be uniform, the neurons in this region of the brain behave more differently from each other than previously thought.
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- Neuroscience
- Physics of Living Systems
Neurons generate and propagate electrical pulses called action potentials which annihilate on arrival at the axon terminal. We measure the extracellular electric field generated by propagating and annihilating action potentials and find that on annihilation, action potentials expel a local discharge. The discharge at the axon terminal generates an inhomogeneous electric field that immediately influences target neurons and thus provokes ephaptic coupling. Our measurements are quantitatively verified by a powerful analytical model which reveals excitation and inhibition in target neurons, depending on position and morphology of the source-target arrangement. Our model is in full agreement with experimental findings on ephaptic coupling at the well-studied Basket cell-Purkinje cell synapse. It is able to predict ephaptic coupling for any other synaptic geometry as illustrated by a few examples.
