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Timing in Purkinje Cells and a Novel Learning Mechanism

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Cerebellum as a CNS Hub

Part of the book series: Contemporary Clinical Neuroscience ((CCNE))

Abstract

During eyeblink conditioning, Purkinje cells that control the eyelid learn to respond with a pause in simple spike firing to the conditional stimulus. This conditional pause response (CR) in the Purkinje cell is adaptively timed and drives the overt response. Recent results show that the Purkinje cell CR does not depend on modification of synaptic strength such as long-term depression but on a novel mechanism that enables the cell to learn the temporal interval between conditional and unconditional stimuli and to time of the CR accordingly. The Purkinje cell CR is elicited by glutamate acting on metabotropic receptors (mGluR7) and may involve inwardly rectifying potassium channels (Kir3).

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by grants from the Swedish Research Council to F.J. (2016-00127 and 2019-02034) and to G.H. (2018-03191). Additional funding from the Krapperup Foundation to G.H. Additional funding to F.J. from the Swedish Brain Foundation (FO2020-0005), the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences (ME2019-0048) and the Crafoord Foundation (20200529) as well as the Ã…ke Wiberg, Magnus Bergvall and Segerfalk foundations.

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  1. Department of Experimental Medical Science, Lund University, Lund, Sweden

    Germund Hesslow, Dan-Anders Jirenhed & Fredrik Johansson

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  1. Germund Hesslow
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  2. Dan-Anders Jirenhed
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  3. Fredrik Johansson
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Correspondence to Germund Hesslow .

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  1. Neurology, NCNP Hospital, National Center of Neurology and Psychiatry (NCNP), Kodaira, Tokyo, Japan

    Hidehiro Mizusawa

  2. Department of Anatomy and Physiology Faculty of Life Sciences, Jissen Women’s University, Tokyo, Japan

    Shinji Kakei

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Hesslow, G., Jirenhed, DA., Johansson, F. (2021). Timing in Purkinje Cells and a Novel Learning Mechanism. In: Mizusawa, H., Kakei, S. (eds) Cerebellum as a CNS Hub. Contemporary Clinical Neuroscience. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-75817-2_15

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