Rate versus synchrony codes for cerebellar control of motor behavior

David J. Herzfeld*, Mati Joshua, Stephen G. Lisberger

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

4 Scopus citations

Abstract

Information transmission between neural populations could occur through either coordinated changes in firing rates or the precise transmission of spike timing. We investigate the code for information transmission from a part of the cerebellar cortex that is crucial for the accurate execution of a quantifiable motor behavior. Simultaneous recordings from Purkinje cell pairs in the cerebellum of rhesus macaques reveal how these cells coordinate their activity to drive smooth pursuit eye movements. Purkinje cells show millisecond-scale coordination of spikes (synchrony), but the level of synchrony is small and insufficient to impact the firing of downstream vestibular nucleus neurons. Analysis of previous metrics that purported to reveal Purkinje cell synchrony demonstrates that these metrics conflate changes in firing rate and neuron-neuron covariance. We conclude that the output of the cerebellar cortex uses primarily a rate rather than a synchrony code to drive the activity of downstream neurons and thus control motor behavior.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)2448-2460.e6
JournalNeuron
Volume111
Issue number15
DOIs
StatePublished - 2 Aug 2023

Bibliographical note

Publisher Copyright:
© 2023 Elsevier Inc.

Keywords

  • Purkinje cells
  • cerebellum
  • neural codes
  • rate code
  • smooth pursuit
  • synchrony
  • ventral paraflocculus

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