Topic: split-belt treadmill

The cerebellum plays a key role in motor learning, adapting movements in response to perturbations or errors. For simple tasks like eyeblink classical conditioning, climbing fibers originating in the inferior olive and projecting to the cerebellum provide neural instructive signals sufficient to drive learning. For complex whole-body behaviors like locomotion, however, it is not known what role climbing fibers play. We recently demonstrated (Darmohray et al., 2019) that mice running on a split-belt treadmill (that controls the speed under each side of the body independently) exhibit a form of

Locomotion of animals is controlled by central pattern generators (CPGs) located in the spinal cord. Afferent feedback allows animals to adapt locomotion to the environment. Responses of neural activities to afferent feedback stimulation have been previously examined during fictive locomotion in immobilized cats. However, the locomotion of behaving animals is governed by dynamic interactions between central neuronal circuits, afferent feedback, the musculoskeletal system, and the environment. To study the specific role of afferent feedback in these interactions, we created a neuromusculoskelet