Cerebellar encoding of multiple candidate error cues in the service of motor learning.

For learning to occur through trial and error, the nervous system must effectively detect and encode performance errors. To examine this process, we designed a set of oculomotor learning tasks with more than one visual object providing potential error cues, as would occur in a natural visual scene. A task-relevant visual target and a task-irrelevant visual background both influenced vestibulo-ocular reflex learning in rhesus monkeys.

Elimination of climbing fiber instructive signals during motor learning.

The climbing fiber input to the cerebellum from the inferior olive is thought to act as a teacher whose activity controls the induction of motor learning. We designed training conditions that did not elicit instructive signals in the climbing fibers, but nevertheless induced robust and consistent motor learning in the vestibulo-ocular reflex of rhesus monkeys. Our results indicate that instructive signals in the climbing fibers are not necessary for cerebellum-dependent learning.

Distinct patterns of stimulus generalization of increases and decreases in VOR gain.

Motor learning must be capable of increasing or decreasing the amplitude of movements to meet the demands of the environment. One way to implement such opposite learned changes would be to store them with bidirectional plasticity mechanisms (i.e.