Topic: climbing fiber inputs

Animals can discriminate time intervals ranging from microseconds to days, which serves to regulate functions as diverse as sound localization to circadian rhythmicity (Mauk and Buonomano, 2004; Buhusi and Meck, 2005). While the mechanisms that enable temporal processing at the microsecond and day scales are relatively well understood (Jeffress, 1948; Rosbash and Hall, 1989), those that enable animals to discriminate time in the behaviorally relevant seconds to minutes scale are not clear. It is believed that there might be at least two distinct interval timing mechanisms, one involving the ce

Climbing fiber inputs to the cerebellar cortex drive low-frequency bursts of activity in Purkinje cells - known as complex spikes - which are thought to encode sensorimotor errors critical for movement refinement. Yet, the precise nature of these signals remains elusive for complex behaviors requiring the coordination of multiple body parts, such as locomotion. To understand the contribution of olivary inputs to the cerebellar cortex in locomotor coordination, we performed calcium imaging from Purkinje cell dendrites in unrestrained mice running on treadmills. Combining miniscope imaging with