The Journal of Neurophysiology Vol. 86 No. 5 November 2001, pp. 2489-2504
Copyright ©2001 by the American Physiological Society

Dynamic Modulation of Mossy Fiber System Throughput by Inferior Olive Synchrony: A Multielectrode Study of Cerebellar Cortex Activated by Motor Cortex

 ¹Abteilung für Kognitive Neurologie, Neurologische Universitätsklinik Tübingen, 72076 Tubingen, Germany; and  ²Neurological Sciences Institute, Oregon Health Sciences University, Beaverton, Oregon 97006

Schwarz, Cornelius and John P. Welsh. Dynamic Modulation of Mossy Fiber System Throughput by Inferior Olive Synchrony: A Multielectrode Study of Cerebellar Cortex Activated by Motor Cortex. J. Neurophysiol. 86: 2489-2504, 2001. We investigated the effects of climbing fiber synchrony on the temporal dynamics of mossy fiber system throughput in populations of cerebellar Purkinje cells (PCs). A multielectrode technique was used in ketamine-anesthetized rats that allowed both complex and simple spikes (CSs and SSs) to be recorded from multiple PCs simultaneously in lobule crus IIa. Stimulation of the tongue area of the primary motor cortex (TM1) was used to evoke cerebro-cerebellar interaction. At the single PC level, robust short-term interactions of CSs and SSs were observed after TM1 stimulation that typically consisted of an immediate depression and subsequent enhancement of SS firing after the occurrence of a CS. Such modulations of SS rate in a given PC were as robustly correlated to the CSs of simultaneously recorded PCs as they were to the CS on its own membraneand did not require a CS on its own membraneindicating a network basis for the interaction. Analyses of simultaneously recorded PCs using the normalized joint perievent time histogram demonstrated that CS and SS firing were dynamically correlated after TM1 stimulation in a manner that indicated strong control of mossy fiber system throughput by CS synchrony. For 300 ms after TM1 stimulation, most PCs showed episodic modulations in SS rate that appeared to be entrained by the population rhythm of climbing fiber synchrony. SS rhythmicity also was modulated dynamically by CSs, such that it was depressed by CSs and facilitated by their absence. Like the modulations in SS rate, a given PC's modulation in SS rhythmicity did not require it to fire a CS but was, on those instances, equally correlated to the synchronous CSs of other PCs. The data indicate that the climbing fiber system controls the temporal dynamics of SS firing in populations of PCs by using synchrony to engage intracerebellar circuitry and modulate mossy fiber system throughput.