Responses evoked in the cerebellar cortex by stimulation of the caudate nucleus in the cat.

Abstract

1. Responses evoked in the cerebellar cortex following stimulation of caudate nucleus are described.2. The evoked responses recorded from the surface of the cerebellar cortex were found to be of two types, one with a short (4-6 msec) latency and one with a longer (12-17 msec) latency.3. The short latency response was maximal in the lobulus simplex, the longer latency response was maximal in paramedian lobule.4. Following lesions in the inferior olive the longer latency response was absent.5. Recordings from within the cerebellar cortex showed that the short latency response was uniformly distributed throughout the grey matter, the longer latency response was maximal in the region of the Purkinje cell bodies.6. It was concluded that the short latency response was due to activation via the mossy fibres and the longer latency response to activation via the climbing fibres.7. It was found that responses could be evoked in the cerebellum following stimulation of only the latero-ventral part of the caudate nucleus; stimulation of the rest of the nucleus caused no response in the cerebellum. This division of the caudate nucleus into two parts is similar to the subdivision of the caudate nucleus made by other workers using different criteria.