Functional organization of the vestibular afferents to the cerebellar cortex of frog and cat.

Abstract

1. Field and unitary potentials evoked in the vestibulo-cerebellum of frog and cat following vestibular nerve stimulation were recorded with microelectrodes and correlated with their site of origin in the various layers of the cerebellar cortex. 2. In the frog, primary vestibular fibers project both as mossy and as climbing fibers onto the cerebellar auricular lobe. Secondary vestibulo-cerebellar fibers seem to end exclusively as mossy fibers in the auriculum. As a consequence of this dual projection, extra- and intracellular recordings from Purkinje cells in the auricular lobe show two kinds of responses to vestibular nerve stimulation: a) graded, repetitive firing mediated through mossy fiber-granule cell-parallel fiber pathways, and b) all-or-none burst responses caused by monosynaptic impingement of vestibular climbing fibers on Purkinje cells. 3. The field and unitary potentials evoked in the cat nodulus, flocculus and uvula following vestibular nerve stimulation are shown to be generated by mossy fibers exclusively. Considerable convergence of the two labyrinthine mossy fiber inputs to a given cerebellar area was found. 4. Interaction of contralateral and ipsilateral mossy fiber input at the level of the flocculus suggests that Golgi cell inhibition might operate not only as a simple inhibitory feedback loop, but also as a complex gating operator at the granule layer. 5. No short latency climbing fiber activation of Purkinje cells was observed following VIIIth nerve stimulation. Stimulation of the contralateral inferior olive evoked short latency climbing fiber EPSPs in Purkinje cells of the vestibulo-cerebellum. Suggestions are made as to the possible role of mossy and climbing fiber inputs to this area of the cerebellum.