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Cerebellar Nuclei

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Essentials of Cerebellum and Cerebellar Disorders

Abstract

Understanding the basic physiology of cerebellar nuclei (CN) is essential to the understanding of cerebellar function and disorders as they provide the only output from the cerebellum along with the vestibular nuclei. In addition to integrating the inhibitory input from cerebellar cortical Purkinje cells, CN neurons also receive direct excitation from mossy fibers and this direct excitatory input to the CN may in fact drive a number of behaviorally relevant activities. The complete picture is considerably more complex than that of a simple relay of incoming excitation and inhibition, however. Specifically, the functional significance of synaptic plasticity in the CN, high spontaneous spike rates, post-inhibitory rebound firing, and multiple output pathways including GABAergic inhibition feeding back to the inferior olive remain to be elucidated.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Biology, Emory University, Atlanta, GA, 30322, USA

    Dieter Jaeger

  2. Department of Biomedical Sciences, Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine, GA Campus, Suwanee, GA, USA

    Huo Lu

Authors
  1. Dieter Jaeger
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  2. Huo Lu
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Dieter Jaeger .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Molecular and Cellular Neuroscience Department, The Scripps Research Institute, La Jolla, California, USA

    Donna L. Gruol

  2. Department of Integrative Physiology, Gunma University Graduate School of Medicine, Maebashi, Gunma, Japan

    Noriyuki Koibuchi

  3. FNRS, ULB-Erasme, Bruxelles, Belgium

    Mario Manto

  4. Clinical Translational Research, Santa Lucia Foundation, Rome, Italy

    Marco Molinari

  5. Ataxia Unit, Cognitive Behavioral Neurology Unit, Laboratory for Neuroanatomy and Cerebellar Neurobiology, Department of Neurology Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA

    Jeremy D. Schmahmann

  6. Department of Neurobiology, Zhejiang University School of Medicine, Hangzhou, China

    Ying Shen

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© 2016 Springer International Publishing Switzerland

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Jaeger, D., Lu, H. (2016). Cerebellar Nuclei. In: Gruol, D., Koibuchi, N., Manto, M., Molinari, M., Schmahmann, J., Shen, Y. (eds) Essentials of Cerebellum and Cerebellar Disorders. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-24551-5_42

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