Robust transmission of rate coding in the inhibitory Purkinje cell to cerebellar nuclei pathway in awake mice

• Type of Material: Article
• Authors: Samira Abbasi, Emory University; Amber E. Hudson, Emory University; Selva K. Maran, Emory University; Ying Cao, University of Tennessee Health Science Center; Ataollah Abbasi, Sahand University of Technology; Detlef H. Heck, University of Tennessee Health Science Center; Dieter Jaeger, Emory University
• Language: English
• Date: 2017-06-15
• Publisher: Public Library of Science
• Publication Version: Final Published Version
• Copyright Statement: © 2017 Abbasi et al
• License: Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International
• Final Published Version (URL): http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pcbi.1005578
• Title of Journal or Parent Work: PLoS Computational Biology
• ISSN: 1553-734X
• Volume: 13
• Issue: 6
• Start Page: e1005578
• End Page: e1005578
• Grant/Funding Information: This study was supported by National Institute of Neurological Disorder and Stroke grant R01NS067201 (DJ and DHH, principal investigators).
• Research Categories: Biology, Neuroscience; Engineering, Biomedical

Abstract

Neural coding through inhibitory projection pathways remains poorly understood. We analyze the transmission properties of the Purkinje cell (PC) to cerebellar nucleus (CN) pathway in a modeling study using a data set recorded in awake mice containing respiratory rate modulation. We find that inhibitory transmission from tonically active PCs can transmit a behavioral rate code with high fidelity. We parameterized the required population code in PC activity and determined that 20% of PC inputs to a full compartmental CN neuron model need to be rate-comodulated for transmission of a rate code. Rate covariance in PC inputs also accounts for the high coefficient of variation in CN spike trains, while the balance between excitation and inhibition determines spike rate and local spike train variability. Overall, our modeling study can fully account for observed spike train properties of cerebellar output in awake mice, and strongly supports rate coding in the cerebellum.