Eyeblink conditioning in 12-day-old rats using pontine stimulation as the conditioned stimulus

A fundamental issue in developmental science is whether ontogenetic changes in memory are caused by the development of cellular plasticity mechanisms within the brain's memory systems or maturation of sensory inputs to the memory systems. Here, we provide evidence that the development of eyeblink conditioning, a form of associative learning that depends on the cerebellum, is driven by the development of sensory inputs rather than the development of neuronal plasticity mechanisms. We find that rats as young as 12 days old show associative eyeblink conditioning when pontine stimulation is used in place of an external (e.g., a tone) conditioned stimulus. Eyeblink-conditioned responses established with pontine stimulation in 12-day-old rats were reversibly abolished by an infusion of muscimol into the cerebellar interpositus nucleus. The findings suggest that cerebellar neurons are capable of supporting associative learning-specific plasticity in vivo in very immature animals if given sufficient afferent stimulation.