Number of spikes in climbing fibers determines the direction of cerebellar learning.
Cerebellar learning requires context information from mossy fibers and a teaching signal through the climbing fibers from the inferior olive. Although the inferior olive fires in bursts, virtually all studies have used a teaching signal consisting of a single pulse. Following a number of failed attempts to induce cerebellar learning in decerebrate ferrets with a nonburst signal, we tested the effect of varying the number of pulses in the climbing fiber teaching signal. The results show that training with a single pulse in a conditioning paradigm in vivo does not result in learning, but rather causes extinction of a previously learned response.
Associative Learning Group, Department of Experimental Medical Science, Lund University, 22184 Lund, Sweden. anders.rasmussen@med.lu.se
Anders
A
Rasmussen
Dan-Anders
DA
Jirenhed
Riccardo
R
Zucca
Fredrik
F
Johansson
Pär
P
Svensson
Germund
G
Hesslow
D000818:Animals; D002531:Cerebellum / Q000502:physiology*; D004594:Electrophysiology; D005108:Extinction, Psychological / Q000502:physiology*; D005289:Ferrets; D007858:Learning / Q000502:physiology*; D008297:Male; D009412:Nerve Fibers / Q000502:physiology; D011689:Purkinje Cells / Q000502:physiology*