Common principles of sensory encoding in spinal reflex modules and cerebellar climbing fibres

An important step towards understanding the function of olivo-cerebellar climbing fibres must be to clarify what they signal. We suggest that climbing fibres projecting to paravermal cerebellum mediate highly integrated sensorimotor information derived from activity in spinal withdrawal reflex modules acting on single forelimb muscles. To test this hypothesis, cutaneous nociceptive receptive fields of spinal reflex modules were mapped and compared to those of climbing fibres. Quantitative methods were used both for mapping and for comparing receptive fields. The organization of muscle afferent input converging on individual climbing fibres was analysed in the light of results from receptive field comparisons. Individual cutaneous receptive fields in the two systems were readily matched. Matched pairs were highly similar with regard to detailed distributions of sensitivity: correlation coefficient r = 0.85; overlap of receptive field foci 72 % (average values). The olivary targets of muscle afferents from a given muscle were mainly climbing fibres with cutaneous receptive fields similar to that of the muscle itself, but to a lesser extent also other climbing fibres. In conclusion, paravermal climbing fibres apparently convey information integrating (i) cutaneous input to an individual spinal withdrawal reflex module, (ii) muscle afferent input from the output muscle of that module and (iii) muscle afferent input from muscles that constitute the output of functionally related modules. This suggests that an individual climbing fibre signals cutaneous sensory events reflecting activity of a single muscle conditional upon the functional state of the muscle itself and that of functionally related muscles.