ECoG activity distribution patterns detects global cortical responses following weak tactile inputs.

Many studies have suggested that the neocortex operates as a global network of functionally interconnected neurons, indicating that any sensory input could shift activity distributions across the whole brain. A tool assessing the activity distribution across cortical regions with high temporal resolution could then potentially detect subtle changes that may pass unnoticed in regionalized analyses. We used eight-channel, distributed electrocorticogram (ECoG) recordings to analyze changes in global activity distribution caused by single pulse electrical stimulations of the paw.

Diversified physiological sensory input connectivity questions the existence of distinct classes of spinal interneurons.

The spinal cord is engaged in all forms of motor performance but its functions are far from understood. Because network connectivity defines function, we explored the connectivity of muscular, tendon, and tactile sensory inputs among a wide population of spinal interneurons in the lower cervical segments. Using low noise intracellular whole cell recordings in the decerebrated, non-anesthetized cat , we could define mono-, di-, and trisynaptic inputs as well as the weights of each input.

Metrics for environmental compensation: A comparative analysis of Swedish municipalities.

Environmental compensation (EC) aims at addressing environmental losses due to development projects and involves a need to compare development losses with compensation gains using relevant metrics. A conceptual procedure for computing no net loss is formulated and used as a point of departure for a comparative analysis of metrics used by five Swedish municipalities as a part of their EC implementation in the spatial planning context of detailed development plans. While Swedish law does not require EC in this context, these municipalities have still decided to introduce EC requirements for development projects that occur on municipality-owned land and to promote voluntary EC among private actors in development projects on private land.

Focal neocortical lesions impair distant neuronal information processing.

Key Points: Parts of the fields of neuroscience and neurology consider the neocortex to be a functionally parcelled structure. Viewed through such a conceptual filter, there are multiple clinical observations after localized stroke lesions that seem paradoxical. We tested the effect that localized stroke-like lesions have on neuronal information processing in a part of the neocortex that is distant to the lesion using animal experiments.

Ubiquitous Neocortical Decoding of Tactile Input Patterns.

Whereas functional localization historically has been a key concept in neuroscience, direct neuronal recordings show that input of a particular modality can be recorded well outside its primary receiving areas in the neocortex. Here, we wanted to explore if such spatially unbounded inputs potentially contain any information about the quality of the input received. We utilized a recently introduced approach to study the neuronal decoding capacity at a high resolution by delivering a set of electrical, highly reproducible spatiotemporal tactile afferent activation patterns to the skin of the contralateral second digit of the forepaw of the anesthetized rat.

Intracellular Dynamics in Cuneate Nucleus Neurons Support Self-Stabilizing Learning of Generalizable Tactile Representations.

How the brain represents the external world is an unresolved issue for neuroscience, which could provide fundamental insights into brain circuitry operation and solutions for artificial intelligence and robotics. The neurons of the cuneate nucleus form the first interface for the sense of touch in the brain. They were previously shown to have a highly skewed synaptic weight distribution for tactile primary afferent inputs, suggesting that their connectivity is strongly shaped by learning.

Correction to: Cerebellar Modules and Their Role as Operational Cerebellar Processing Units: A Consensus paper.

In the original version of this paper, the Title should have been written with "A Consensus paper" to read "Cerebellar Modules and Their Role as Operational Cerebellar Processing Units: A Consensus paper".

Cerebellar Modules and Their Role as Operational Cerebellar Processing Units: A Consensus paper [corrected].

The compartmentalization of the cerebellum into modules is often used to discuss its function. What, exactly, can be considered a module, how do they operate, can they be subdivided and do they act individually or in concert are only some of the key questions discussed in this consensus paper. Experts studying cerebellar compartmentalization give their insights on the structure and function of cerebellar modules, with the aim of providing an up-to-date review of the extensive literature on this subject.

Artificial spatiotemporal touch inputs reveal complementary decoding in neocortical neurons.

Investigations of the mechanisms of touch perception and decoding has been hampered by difficulties in achieving invariant patterns of skin sensor activation. To obtain reproducible spatiotemporal patterns of activation of sensory afferents, we used an artificial fingertip equipped with an array of neuromorphic sensors. The artificial fingertip was used to transduce real-world haptic stimuli into spatiotemporal patterns of spikes.

No Medium-Term Spinocerebellar Input Plasticity in Deep Cerebellar Nuclear Neurons In Vivo?

The existence of input plasticity in the deep cerebellar nuclear (DCN) cells of the adult cerebellum could have profound implications for our understanding of cerebellar function. Whereas the existence of plastic changes in mossy fiber (mf) synaptic responses in DCN neurons has been demonstrated in juvenile slices, there has so far been no direct demonstration of this form of plasticity in the adult cerebellum in vivo. In the present paper, we recorded from neurons in the anterior interposed nucleus (AIN) and stimulated the spinocerebellar tracts (SCT) directly or via the skin to obtain mf activation and the inferior olive to activate climbing fibers (cfs) in the nonanesthetized, adult, decerebrated cat.

The Roles of the Olivocerebellar Pathway in Motor Learning and Motor Control. A Consensus Paper.

For many decades, the predominant view in the cerebellar field has been that the olivocerebellar system's primary function is to induce plasticity in the cerebellar cortex, specifically, at the parallel fiber-Purkinje cell synapse. However, it has also long been proposed that the olivocerebellar system participates directly in motor control by helping to shape ongoing motor commands being issued by the cerebellum. Evidence consistent with both hypotheses exists; however, they are often investigated as mutually exclusive alternatives.

Climbing Fiber Regulation of Spontaneous Purkinje Cell Activity and Cerebellum-Dependent Blink Responses(1,2,3).

It has been known for a long time that GABAergic Purkinje cells in the cerebellar cortex, as well as their target neurons in the cerebellar nuclei, are spontaneously active. The cerebellar output will, therefore, depend on how input is integrated into this spontaneous activity. It has been shown that input from climbing fibers originating in the inferior olive controls the spontaneous activity in Purkinje cells.

Climbing fiber receptive fields-organizational and functional aspects and relationship to limb coordination.

Climbing fiber receptive fields are a physiological marker that have proven useful to delineate the details of the olivocerebellar circuitry. They have also proven useful as a point of reference to delineate the organization of other parts of the cerebellar circuitry. But what does the location of the climbing fiber receptive field imply and what is its relation to the presumed role of the cerebellum in coordination? Can we expect that all climbing fibers have a peripheral receptive field on the skin? In this short review, we aim to cover these issues.

Properties of bilateral spinocerebellar activation of cerebellar cortical neurons.

We aimed to explore the cerebellar cortical inputs from two spinocerebellar pathways, the spinal border cell-component of the ventral spinocerebellar tract (SBC-VSCT) and the dorsal spinocerebellar tract (DSCT), respectively, in the sublobule C1 of the cerebellar posterior lobe. The two pathways were activated by electrical stimulation of the contralateral lateral funiculus (coLF) and the ipsilateral LF (iLF) at lower thoracic levels. Most granule cells in sublobule C1 did not respond at all but part of the granule cell population displayed high-intensity responses to either coLF or iLF stimulation.

Simulating spinal border cells and cerebellar granule cells under locomotion--a case study of spinocerebellar information processing.

The spinocerebellar systems are essential for the brain in the performance of coordinated movements, but our knowledge about the spinocerebellar interactions is very limited. Recently, several crucial pieces of information have been acquired for the spinal border cell (SBC) component of the ventral spinocerebellar tract (VSCT), as well as the effects of SBC mossy fiber activation in granule cells of the cerebellar cortex. SBCs receive monosynaptic input from the reticulospinal tract (RST), which is an important driving system under locomotion, and disynaptic inhibition from Ib muscle afferents.

Segregation of tactile input features in neurons of the cuneate nucleus.

Our tactile perception of external objects depends on skin-object interactions. The mechanics of contact dictates the existence of fundamental spatiotemporal input features-contact initiation and cessation, slip, and rolling contact-that originate from the fact that solid objects do not interpenetrate. However, it is unknown whether these features are represented within the brain.

Spike generation estimated from stationary spike trains in a variety of neurons in vivo.

To any model of brain function, the variability of neuronal spike firing is a problem that needs to be taken into account. Whereas the synaptic integration can be described in terms of the original Hodgkin-Huxley (H-H) formulations of conductance-based electrical signaling, the transformation of the resulting membrane potential into patterns of spike output is subjected to stochasticity that may not be captured with standard single neuron H-H models. The dynamics of the spike output is dependent on the normal background synaptic noise present in vivo, but the neuronal spike firing variability in vivo is not well studied.

Changing behavior towards sustainable practices using Information Technology.

This article addresses the question of how to change individuals' behavior towards more sustainable practices using Information Technology (IT). By following a multidisciplinary and socio-technical perspective, this inquiry is answered by applying a new framework-The Commonality Framework for IT-enabled Change-on a case study of sustainable behavioral change. The framework is grounded in practice theory and is used to analyze the implementation of an IT-system aimed at changing citizens' behavior towards more sustainable transport logistics and procurement in Uppsala, Sweden.

Spatio-temporal skin strain distributions evoke low variability spike responses in cuneate neurons.

A common method to explore the somatosensory function of the brain is to relate skin stimuli to neurophysiological recordings. However, interaction with the skin involves complex mechanical effects. Variability in mechanically induced spike responses is likely to be due in part to mechanical variability of the transformation of stimuli into spiking patterns in the primary sensors located in the skin.

Specific relationship between excitatory inputs and climbing fiber receptive fields in deep cerebellar nuclear neurons.

Many mossy fiber pathways to the neurons of the deep cerebellar nucleus (DCN) originate from the spinal motor circuitry. For cutaneously activated spinal neurons, the receptive field is a tag indicating the specific motor function the spinal neuron has. Similarly, the climbing fiber receptive field of the DCN neuron reflects the specific motor output function of the DCN neuron.

Cerebellar cortical neuron responses evoked from the spinal border cell tract.

Spinocerebellar systems are likely to be crucial for cerebellar hallmark functions such as coordination. However, in terms of cerebellar functional analyses, these are perhaps among the least explored systems. The aim of the present study is to achieve activation of a single component of the spinocerebellar systems and to explore to what extent it can influence the spike output of granule cells, Golgi cells, molecular layer (ML) interneurons (stellate and basket cells) and Purkinje cells (PCs).

Parallel fiber and climbing fiber responses in rat cerebellar cortical neurons in vivo.

Over the last few years we have seen a rapidly increasing interest in the functions of the inhibitory interneurons of the cerebellar cortex. However, we still have very limited knowledge about their physiological properties in vivo. The present study provides the first description of their spontaneous firing properties and their responses to synaptic inputs under non-anesthetized conditions in the decerebrated rat in vivo.

Probabilistic identification of cerebellar cortical neurones across species.

Despite our fine-grain anatomical knowledge of the cerebellar cortex, electrophysiological studies of circuit information processing over the last fifty years have been hampered by the difficulty of reliably assigning signals to identified cell types. We approached this problem by assessing the spontaneous activity signatures of identified cerebellar cortical neurones. A range of statistics describing firing frequency and irregularity were then used, individually and in combination, to build Gaussian Process Classifiers (GPC) leading to a probabilistic classification of each neurone type and the computation of equi-probable decision boundaries between cell classes.

Integration of sensory quanta in cuneate nucleus neurons in vivo.

Discriminative touch relies on afferent information carried to the central nervous system by action potentials (spikes) in ensembles of primary afferents bundled in peripheral nerves. These sensory quanta are first processed by the cuneate nucleus before the afferent information is transmitted to brain networks serving specific perceptual and sensorimotor functions. Here we report data on the integration of primary afferent synaptic inputs obtained with in vivo whole cell patch clamp recordings from the neurons of this nucleus.

Stimulation within the cuneate nucleus suppresses synaptic activation of climbing fibers.

Several lines of research have shown that the excitability of the inferior olive is suppressed during different phases of movement. A number of different structures like the cerebral cortex, the red nucleus, and the cerebellum have been suggested as candidate structures for mediating this gating. The inhibition of the responses of the inferior olivary neurons from the red nucleus has been studied extensively and anatomical studies have found specific areas within the cuneate nucleus to be target areas for projections from the magnocellular red nucleus.