A Snapshot seminar hosted by the School of Physiology, Pharmacology and Neuroscience
Meyer Title: Touch disrupts how the cerebellum tracks whiskers movements.
Abstract: The cerebellum has long been thought to generate predictions about upcoming motor actions to support motor control in a constantly changing environment. In mice, it uses both motor signals and touch signals from the whiskers to gain information about the mouse’s surroundings and to generate appropriate motor commands.
Molecular layer interneurons (MLIs) in the cerebellar cortex are important because they help regulate the output of Purkinje cells, the main cells controlling cerebellar activity. How MLIs process motor signals and touch signals and thereby support the generation of appropriate predictions of upcoming motor commands is not well understood yet.
Using 2-Photon imaging and high-speed video recordings, we studied how MLIs respond in awake mice during voluntary whisker movements. We found that when mice whisked freely, the activity of MLI populations closely matched the position of their whiskers, providing a stable and accurate readout over time. However, when the mice whisked against a pole, the sensory input caused a temporary disruption in the relationship between MLI activity and whisker position. The data supports the hypothesis that MLIs in Crus1 have an existing model of whisker position that is disrupted when the animal encounters an obstacle in the whisking path. This suggests that MLIs contribute to update future whisking commands to take obstacles into account, thereby updating motor predictions to account for changes in the environment.
Simpson Title: Under Stress: why women of Black African Heritage are at elevated risk of hypertensive-related stroke