"Long-term depression (LTD) at parallel fiber-Purkinje cell (PF-PC) synapses is thought to underlie memory formation in cerebellar motor learning. Recent experimental results, however, suggest that multiple plasticity mechanisms in the cerebellar cortex and cerebellar/vestibular nuclei participate in memory formation. To examine this possibility, we formulated a simple model of the cerebellum with a minimal number of components based on its known anatomy and physiology, implementing both LTD and long-term potentiation (LTP) at PF-PC synapses and mossy fiber-vestibular nuclear neuron (MF-VN) synapses. With this model, we conducted a simulation study of the gain adaptation of optokinetic response (OKR) eye movement. Our model reproduced several important aspects of previously reported experimental results in wild-type and cerebellum-related gene-manipulated mice. ..."
Model Type: Connectionist Network
Cell Type(s): Cerebellum Purkinje GABA cell; Cerebellum deep nucleus neuron
Model Concept(s): Simplified Models; Synaptic Plasticity; Long-term Synaptic Plasticity; Hebbian plasticity
Simulation Environment: C or C++ program
Implementer(s): Yamazaki, Tadashi
References:
Yamazaki T, Nagao S, Lennon W, Tanaka S. (2015). Modeling memory consolidation during posttraining periods in cerebellovestibular learning. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America. 112 [PubMed]