The cerebellar nuclei take center stage.

Abstract

Despite the central location of the cerebellar nuclei neurons (CN) and those in the vestibular nuclei (VN) that receive Purkinje cell input, the neuroscience community has addressed surprisingly little attention to neurons in these central structures compared to various other down- and upstream components of olivo-cerebellar network. One such example is the cerebellar Purkinje cell, which forms the sole output of the cerebellar cortex: many detailed publications on their inner workings such as intracellular signal transduction (synaptic), integration, and plasticity are published every month. Ultimately, all these influences on Purkinje cell firing can only have an effect on behavior by means of the CN and VN. In these downstream nuclei, tens to hundreds of Purkinje cells converge on a single neuron [1–3]. Together with the synaptic inputs from mossy to climbing fiber collaterals, the Purkinje cell inputs control the timing of the intrinsically generated action potentials of CN and VN neurons and thereby control the true output of the cerebellum [4, 5]. The spiking activity of both the CN and VN are projected to a wide variety of downstream targets, like premotor nuclei in the brainstem, thalamic nuclei, and the spinal cord [6]. This large variability in projection areas indicates that the information content of the CN activity is extremely diverse and cannot be captured in few words. It was the goal of the recent FENS satellite meeting “Cerebellar Nuclei – Ins and Outs” held in Amsterdam to clarify how CN activity comes about and what information is encoded at the various stages of the network. The current issue of the journal cerebellum contains the proceedings of this meeting.