bims-climfi 2023-09-17 papers

Issue of 2023‒09‒17
two papers selected by
Jun Maruta, Mount Sinai Health System

Elife. 2023 Sep 15. pii: e86340. [Epub ahead of print]12

Dynamic organization of cerebellar climbing fiber response and synchrony in multiple functional components reduces dimensions for reinforcement learning.

Huu Hoang, Shinichiro Tsutsumi, Masanori Matsuzaki, Masanobu Kano, Mitsuo Kawato, Kazuo Kitamura, Keisuke Toyama.

Cerebellar climbing fibers convey diverse signals, but how they are organized in the compartmental structure of the cerebellar cortex during learning remains largely unclear. We analyzed a large amount of coordinate-localized two-photon imaging data from cerebellar Crus II in mice undergoing 'Go/No-go' reinforcement learning. Tensor component analysis revealed that a majority of climbing fiber inputs to Purkinje cells were reduced to only four functional components, corresponding to accurate timing control of motor initiation related to a Go cue, cognitive error-based learning, reward processing, and inhibition of erroneous behaviors after a No-go cue. Changes in neural activities during learning of the first two components were correlated with corresponding changes in timing control and error learning across animals, indirectly suggesting causal relationships. Spatial distribution of these components coincided well with boundaries of Aldolase-C/zebrin II expression in Purkinje cells, whereas several components are mixed in single neurons. Synchronization within individual components was bidirectionally regulated according to specific task contexts and learning stages. These findings suggest that, in close collaborations with other brain regions including the inferior olive nucleus, the cerebellum, based on anatomical compartments, reduces dimensions of the learning space by dynamically organizing multiple functional components, a feature that may inspire new-generation AI designs.

Keywords: computational biology; mouse; neuroscience; systems biology

DOI: https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.86340

Commun Biol. 2023 09 09. 6(1): 924

Cerebellar climbing fibers multiplex movement and reward signals during a voluntary movement task in mice.

Koji Ikezoe, Naoki Hidaka, Satoshi Manita, Masayoshi Murakami, Shinichiro Tsutsumi, Yoshikazu Isomura, Masanobu Kano, Kazuo Kitamura.

Cerebellar climbing fibers convey sensorimotor information and their errors, which are used for motor control and learning. Furthermore, they represent reward-related information. Despite such functional diversity of climbing fiber signals, it is still unclear whether each climbing fiber conveys the information of single or multiple modalities and how the climbing fibers conveying different information are distributed over the cerebellar cortex. Here we perform two-photon calcium imaging from cerebellar Purkinje cells in mice engaged in a voluntary forelimb lever-pull task and demonstrate that climbing fiber responses in 68% of Purkinje cells can be explained by the combination of multiple behavioral variables such as lever movement, licking, and reward delivery. Neighboring Purkinje cells exhibit similar climbing fiber response properties, form functional clusters, and share noise fluctuations of responses. Taken together, individual climbing fibers convey behavioral information on multiplex variables and are spatially organized into the functional modules of the cerebellar cortex.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s42003-023-05309-9