Roles of the Cerebellar Interneurons on Vestibulo-Ocular Reflex Motor Learning: A Computational Study

The vestibule-ocular reflex (VOR) has been one of the most popular model systems to investigate the role of the cerebellum in adaptive motor control. The cerebellum receives sensory and motor information via mossy and climbing fibers, and solely outputs motor-related activities from Purkinje cell. The cerebellar flocculus also contains rich inhibitory interneurons known as Golgi, basket, and stellate cells. While most of the previous studies on VOR motor learning have focused on responses of Purkinje cells, little attention has been paid to the roles of cerebellar inhibitory interneurons due to difficulty in identifying and recording them in behaving animals. Thus, the contribution of those interneurons on cerebellar motor learning is still a mystery. Herein, we have constructed a computational model of the VOR that explicitly implements the anatomically realistic floccular neuronal network structure so that the activities of each inhibitory interneuron can be evaluated. From the knocked out simulation of Golgi or basket/stellate cells, we confirmed that those inhibitory interneurons play a different contribution to the acquisition of new VOR performance.