Journal
PLOS ONE
Volume 7, Issue 4, Pages -Publisher
PUBLIC LIBRARY SCIENCE
DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0032560
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Funding
- French Ministry of Higher Education and Research
- French Defense Procurement Agency (DGA)
- French National Research Agency (ANR) [ANR-09-EMER-005-01]
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Complementing its primary role in motor control, cerebellar learning has also a bottom-up influence on cognitive functions where high-level representations build up from elementary sensorimotor memories. In this paper we examine the cerebellar contribution to both procedural and declarative components of spatial cognition. To do so, we model a functional interplay between the cerebellum and the hippocampal formation during goal-oriented navigation. We reinterpret and complete existing genetic behavioural observations by means of quantitative accounts that cross-link synaptic plasticity mechanisms, single cell and population coding properties, and behavioural responses. In contrast to earlier hypotheses positing only a purely procedural impact of cerebellar adaptation deficits, our results suggest a cerebellar involvement in high-level aspects of behaviour. In particular, we propose that cerebellar learning mechanisms may influence hippocampal place fields, by contributing to the path integration process. Our simulations Predict differences in place-cell discharge properties between normal mice and L7-PKCl mutant mice lacking long-term depression at cerebellar parallel fibre-Purkinje cell synapses. On the behavioural level, these results suggest that, by influencing the accuracy of hippocampal spatial codes, cerebellar deficits may impact the exploration-exploitation balance during spatial navigation.
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