Cerebellar climbing fibers can generate learned reward-predictive instructional signals, suggesting a role for cerebellar learning in the reinforcement of reward-driven behaviors.
Motor and non-motor functions are represented in spatially segregated and temporally organized climbing fiber signals to distinct cerebellar zones during goal-directed behavior.
Climbing fiber glutamate spillover enhances response complexity and regulates signaling to Golgi cells through a form of transmission not constrained to synapses.
In vivo recordings in unanesthetized zebrafish larvae show that Purkinje neurons have two stable membrane potential states and that climbing fiber inputs can toggle them to up states during motor episodes.
Sensory-driven calcium spikes in Purkinje cells are not binary; instead, they are graded and can provide information about the strength of a periocular airpuff stimulus known to drive learning.
Electrophysiological recordings in monkeys reveal that cerebellar complex spikes encode future reward size when reward information is first made available, but not during reward delivery or smooth pursuit eye movement.
During learning, one climbing fiber input instructs plasticity that is expressed in the simple-spike responses of cerebellar Purkinje cells, and causes neural learning that may inhibit future climbing fiber instructions.
Simultaneous voltage and calcium two-photon imaging of Purkinje neuron dendrites in awake mice reveals multiple interplaying mechanisms underlying sensory-evoked dendritic coincidence detection of parallel fiber and climbing fiber input.