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Cerebellar plasticity is a critical mechanism for optimal feedback control. While Purkinje cell activity of the oculomotor vermis predicts eye movement speed and direction, more lateral areas of the cerebellum may play a role in more complex tasks, including decision-making. It is still under question how this motor-cognitive functional dichotomy between medial and lateral areas of the cerebellum plays a role in optimal feedback control. Here we show that elite athletes subjected to a trajectory prediction, go/no-go task manifest superior subsecond trajectory prediction accompanied by optimal eye movements and changes in cognitive load dynamics. Moreover, while interacting with the cerebral cortex, both the medial and lateral cerebellar networks are prominently activated during the fast feedback stage of the task, regardless of whether or not a motor response was required for the correct response. Our results show that cortico-cerebellar interactions are widespread during dynamic feedback and that experience can result in superior task-specific decision skills.

Inferior olivary activity causes both short-term and long-term changes in cerebellar output underlying motor performance and motor learning. Many of its neurons engage in coherent subthreshold oscillations and are extensively coupled via gap junctions. Studies in reduced preparations suggest that these properties promote rhythmic, synchronized output. However, the interaction of these properties with torrential synaptic inputs in awake behaving animals is not well understood. Here we combine electrophysiological recordings in awake mice with a realistic tissue-scale computational model of the inferior olive to study the relative impact of intrinsic and extrinsic mechanisms governing its activity. Our data and model suggest that if subthreshold oscillations are present in the awake state, the period of these oscillations will be transient and variable. Accordingly, by using different temporal patterns of sensory stimulation, we found that complex spike rhythmicity was readily evoked but limited to short intervals of no more than a few hundred milliseconds and that the periodicity of this rhythmic activity was not fixed but dynamically related to the synaptic input to the inferior olive as well as to motor output. In contrast, in the long-term, the average olivary spiking activity was not affected by the strength and duration of the sensory stimulation, while the level of gap junctional coupling determined the stiffness of the rhythmic activity in the olivary network during its dynamic response to sensory modulation. Thus, interactions between intrinsic properties and extrinsic inputs can explain the variations of spiking activity of olivary neurons, providing a temporal framework for the creation of both the short-term and long-term changes in cerebellar output., Author summary Activity of the inferior olive, transmitted via climbing fibers to the cerebellum, regulates initiation and amplitude of movements, signals unexpected sensory feedback, and directs cerebellar learning. It is characterized by widespread subthreshold oscillations and synchronization promoted by strong electrotonic coupling. In brain slices, subthreshold oscillations gate which inputs can be transmitted by inferior olivary neurons and which will not—dependent on the phase of the oscillation. We tested whether the subthreshold oscillations had a measurable impact on temporal patterning of climbing fiber activity in intact, awake mice. We did so by recording neural activity of the postsynaptic Purkinje cells, in which complex spike firing faithfully represents climbing fiber activity. For short intervals (

Whisker-based object localization requires activation and plasticity of somatosensory and motor cortex. These parts of the cerebral cortex receive strong projections from the cerebellum via the thalamus, but it is unclear whether and to what extent cerebellar processing may contribute to such a sensorimotor task. Here, we subjected knock-out mice, which suffer from impaired intrinsic plasticity in their Purkinje cells and long-term potentiation at their parallel fiber-to-Purkinje cell synapses (L7-PP2B), to an object localization task with a time response window (RW). Water-deprived animals had to learn to localize an object with their whiskers, and based upon this location they were trained to lick within a particular period (“go” trial) or refrain from licking (“no-go” trial). L7-PP2B mice were not ataxic and showed proper basic motor performance during whisking and licking, but were severely impaired in learning this task compared with wild-type littermates. Significantly fewer L7-PP2B mice were able to learn the task at long RWs. Those L7-PP2B mice that eventually learned the task made unstable progress, were significantly slower in learning, and showed deficiencies in temporal tuning. These differences became greater as the RW became narrower. Trained wild-type mice, but not L7-PP2B mice, showed a net increase in simple spikes and complex spikes of their Purkinje cells during the task. We conclude that cerebellar processing, and potentiation in particular, can contribute to learning a whisker-based object localization task when timing is relevant. This study points toward a relevant role of cerebellum–cerebrum interaction in a sophisticated cognitive task requiring strict temporal processing.

Many daily life activities demand precise integration of spatial and temporal information of sensory inputs followed by appropriate motor actions. This type of integration is carried out in part by the cerebellum, which has been postulated to play a central role in learning and timing of movements. Cerebellar damage due to atrophy or lesions may compromise forward-model processing, in which both spatial and temporal cues are used to achieve prediction for future motor states. In the present study we sought to further investigate the cerebellar contribution to predictive and reactive motor timing, as well as to learning of sequential order and temporal intervals in these tasks. We tested patients with spinocerebellar ataxia type 6 (SCA6) and healthy controls for two related motor tasks; one requiring spatio-temporal prediction of dynamic visual stimuli and another one requiring reactive timing only. We found that healthy controls established spatio-temporal prediction in their responses with high temporal precision, which was absent in the cerebellar patients. SCA6 patients showed lower predictive motor timing, coinciding with a reduced number of correct responses during the ‘anticipatory’ period on the task. Moreover, on the task utilizing reactive motor timing functions, control participants showed both sequence order and temporal interval learning, whereas patients only showed sequence order learning. These results suggest that SCA6 affects predictive motor timing and temporal interval learning. Our results support and highlight cerebellar contribution to timing and argue for cerebellar engagement during spatio-temporal prediction of upcoming events.

Trajectory-dependent coding in dorsal CA1 of hippocampus has been evident in various spatial memory tasks aiming to model episodic memory. Hippocampal neurons are considered to be trajectory-dependent if the neuron has a place field located on an overlapping segment of two trajectories and exhibits a reliable difference in firing rate between the two trajectories. It is unclear whether trajectory-dependent coding in hippocampus is a mechanism used by the rat to solve spatial memory tasks. A first step in answering this question is to compare results between studies using tasks that require spatial working memory and those that do not. We recorded single units from dorsal CA1 of hippocampus during performance of a discrete-trial, tactile-visual conditional discrimination (CD) task in a T-maze. In this task, removable floor inserts that differ in texture and appearance cue the rat to visit either the left or right goal arm to receive a food reward. Our goal was to assess whether trajectory coding would be evident in the CD task. Our results show that trajectory coding was rare in the CD task, with only 12 of 71 cells with place fields on the maze stem showing a significant firing rate difference between left and right trials. For comparison, we recorded from dorsal CA1 during the acquisition and performance of a continuous spatial alternation task identical to that used in previous studies and found a proportion of trajectory coding neurons similar to what has been previously reported. Our data suggest that trajectory coding is not a universal mechanism used by the hippocampus to disambiguate similar trajectories, and instead may be more likely to appear in tasks that require the animal to retrieve information about a past trajectory, particularly in tasks that are continuous rather than discrete in nature.

The cerebellar cortex is crucial for sensorimotor integration. Sensorimotor inputs converge on cerebellar Purkinje cells via two afferent pathways: the climbing fibre pathway triggering complex spikes, and the mossy fibre–parallel fibre pathway, modulating the simple spike activities of Purkinje cells. We used, for the first time, the mouse whisker system as a model system to study the encoding of somatosensory input by Purkinje cells. We show that most Purkinje cells in ipsilateral crus 1 and crus 2 of awake mice respond to whisker stimulation with complex spike and/or simple spike responses. Single-whisker stimulation in anaesthetised mice revealed that the receptive fields of complex spike and simple spike responses were strikingly different. Complex spike responses, which proved to be sensitive to the amplitude, speed and direction of whisker movement, were evoked by only one or a few whiskers. Simple spike responses, which were not affected by the direction of movement, could be evoked by many individual whiskers. The receptive fields of Purkinje cells were largely intermingled, and we suggest that this facilitates the rapid integration of sensory inputs from different sources. Furthermore, we describe that individual Purkinje cells, at least under anaesthesia, may be bound in two functional ensembles based on the receptive fields and the synchrony of the complex spike and simple spike responses. The ‘complex spike ensembles’ were oriented in the sagittal plane, following the anatomical organization of the climbing fibres, while the ‘simple spike ensembles’ were oriented in the transversal plane, as are the beams of parallel fibres.

The human-mediated use and abuse of classical antibiotics has created a strong selective pressure for the rapid evolution of antibiotic resistance. As resistance levels rise, and the efficacy of classical antibiotics wanes, the intensity of the search for alternative antimicrobials has increased. One class of molecules that has attracted much attention is the antimicrobial peptides (AMPs). They exhibit broad-spectrum activity, they are potent and they are widespread as part of the innate defence system of both vertebrates and invertebrates. However, peptides are complex molecules that suffer from proteolytic degradation. The ability to capture the essential properties of antimicrobial peptides in simple easy-to-prepare molecules that are abiotic in origin and non-proteolytic offers many advantages. Mechanistic and structural knowledge of existing AMPs was used to design a novel compound that mimics the biochemical activity of an AMP. This report describes the development and in vitro characterization of a small peptide mimic that exhibited quick-acting and selective antibacterial activity against a broad range of bacteria, including numerous clinically relevant strains, at low MIC values.

The rodent whisker system is widely used as a model system for investigating sensorimotor integration, neural mechanisms of complex cognitive tasks, neural development, and robotics. The whisker pathways to the barrel cortex have received considerable attention. However, many subcortical structures are paramount to the whisker system. They contribute to important processes, like filtering out salient features, integration with other senses, and adaptation of the whisker system to the general behavioral state of the animal. We present here an overview of the brain regions and their connections involved in the whisker system. We do not only describe the anatomy and functional roles of the cerebral cortex, but also those of subcortical structures like the striatum, superior colliculus, cerebellum, pontomedullary reticular formation, zona incerta, and anterior pretectal nucleus as well as those of level setting systems like the cholinergic, histaminergic, serotonergic, and noradrenergic pathways. We conclude by discussing how these brain regions may affect each other and how they together may control the precise timing of whisker movements and coordinate whisker perception.

The cerebellar cortex is crucial for sensorimotor integration. Sensorimotor inputs converge on cerebellar Purkinje cells via two afferent pathways: the climbing fibre pathway triggering complex spikes, and the mossy fibre–parallel fibre pathway, modulating the simple spike activities of Purkinje cells. We used, for the first time, the mouse whisker system as a model system to study the encoding of somatosensory input by Purkinje cells. We show that most Purkinje cells in ipsilateral crus 1 and crus 2 of awake mice respond to whisker stimulation with complex spike and/or simple spike responses. Single-whisker stimulation in anaesthetised mice revealed that the receptive fields of complex spike and simple spike responses were strikingly different. Complex spike responses, which proved to be sensitive to the amplitude, speed and direction of whisker movement, were evoked by only one or a few whiskers. Simple spike responses, which were not affected by the direction of movement, could be evoked by many individual whiskers. The receptive fields of Purkinje cells were largely intermingled, and we suggest that this facilitates the rapid integration of sensory inputs from different sources. Furthermore, we describe that individual Purkinje cells, at least under anaesthesia, may be bound in two functional ensembles based on the receptive fields and the synchrony of the complex spike and simple spike responses. The ‘complex spike ensembles’ were oriented in the sagittal plane, following the anatomical organization of the climbing fibres, while the ‘simple spike ensembles’ were oriented in the transversal plane, as are the beams of parallel fibres.

A major controversy in memory research concerns whether recognition is subdivided into distinct cognitive mechanisms of recollection and familiarity that are supported by different neural substrates. Here we developed a new associative recognition protocol for rats that enabled us to show that recollection is reduced, whereas familiarity is increased following hippocampal damage. These results provide strong evidence that these processes are qualitatively different and that the hippocampus supports recollection and not familiarity.

There is increasing evidence that endothelial cells respond to a variety of mediators. In the current studies rat pulmonary artery endothelial cells (RPAEC) responded to human recombinant C5a and tumor necrosis factor-alpha (TNF-alpha) with the generation of superoxide (O2-). RPAEC responsiveness was dependent on whether cells had been obtained from confluent or subconfluent cell monolayers. RPAEC responded to C5a and TNF-alpha in a dose-dependent manner, with increases in intracellular Ca2+ (Cai2+), formation of D-myo-inositol 1,4,5-trisphosphate [Ins(1,4,5)P3], and generation of O2-. Optimal O2- responses occurred in cells that had been pretreated with the inhibitor of superoxide dismutase (SOD), diethyldithiocarbamate, and O2- responses were allopurinol insensitive. Pertussis toxin pretreatment abolished the ability of C5a to cause increases in Ins(1,4,5)P3 and Cai2+ and formation of O2- but did not inhibit the changes in Cai2+ and formation of O2- after addition of TNF-alpha. The O2- response to C5a but not to TNF-alpha was abolished by pretreatment with the inhibitor of protein kinase C, staurosporine. These data indicate that signal transduction events in response to C5a and TNF-alpha were fundamentally different.