Elsevier

Brain Research Reviews

Volume 34, Issue 3, December 2000, Pages 149-156
Brain Research Reviews

Full-length review
Is the cerebellum like cerebellar-like structures?

https://doi.org/10.1016/S0165-0173(00)00045-XGet rights and content

Abstract

The cerebellum and cerebellar-like structures (including the dorsal and medial octavolateral nucleus of fishes and amphibians, the electrosensory lateral line lobe of electroreceptive teleost fishes and the dorsal cochlear nucleus of mammals) have similar anatomy, common developmental origins and common cellular markers. Transplanted embryonic Purkinje cells integrate into cerebellar-like structures but not neighboring brain parenchyma, and mutations that cause cerebellar degeneration cause similar defects in cerebellar-like structures. This review advances the idea that these neuroanatomical and molecular similarities have functional equivalents. The main structural difference between the cerebellum and cerebellar-like structures, the inferior olivary nucleus, can be viewed as a relay station that evolution has interposed along the path of flow of primary sensory information to the cerebellum. Gating of sensory information to the cerebellum occurs at the level of inferior olivary nucleus depending on whether arriving information is expected. Activation of inferior olivary neurons leads to plasticity, and finely tuned inhibitory inputs suppress olivary excitation when the plasticity is not needed. Functionally, the olivo-cerebellar system performs the same kind of computation as cerebellar-like structures: the subtraction of sensory expectations.

Section snippets

Introduction: the cerebellum superstar

Ever since the days of Ramon y Cajal [9] the cerebellum has been famous for its ‘crystal-like’ organization, repeating morphological features that appear to be virtually the same throughout the whole structure. This apparent simplicity has attracted the attention of many researchers over the last 100 years and yet, despite all the efforts, the question of cerebellar function remains unanswered. While classic neurobiology views the cerebellum as an essential part of the motor control system,

Anatomical considerations

Cerebellar-like structures got their name from their cerebellum-like anatomy. Since anatomy frequently reflects function, let us first consider the similarity and the difference between these two (Fig. 1).

The cerebellum has one layer of principal neurons — Purkinje cells. All Purkinje cell dendrites are aligned in the same plane and face the outer side of the cerebellar cortex. All Purkinje cell axons run in the opposite, inward, direction to contact cells of the deep cerebellar nuclei. Thus

Function of cerebellar-like structures

The function of cerebellar-like structures has been extensively studied. Despite the difference in the modality of sensory inputs among the various cerebellar-like structures, all of the non-mammalian ones carry out the same computation: subtraction of ‘sensory expectations’. In the mammalian dorsal cochlear nucleus the nature of the computation is still unknown.

The dorsal octavolateral nucleus of elasmobranch fishes is a particularly well studied example [40]. In this structure

Inferior olive as a filtering station for peripheral sensory information

The function(s) of the cerebellum is still an open question. Can anatomical, developmental and molecular similarity between the cerebellum and cerebellar-like structures be extended to function? The most striking (and probably the principal) difference between the cerebellum and cerebellum-like structures is the presence of the inferior olivary nucleus as the source of climbing fiber input in the former in place of primary afferent input in the latter. Can the inferior olivary nucleus be viewed

What kind of computation does the cerebellum perform?

Is there one specific function that characterizes the involvement of the cerebellum in the wide variety of tasks it is said to carry out: movement, sensory acquisition, attention and emotions? In both the classical conditioning and the VOR experimental paradigms the involvement of the cerebellum is related to an association of two sensory stimuli. In the case of classical conditioning it is CS and US. In the case of VOR it is vestibular and visual signals. In both paradigms one of the stimuli

Conclusions

I have argued that the cerebellum and cerebellar-like structures are involved in the same kind of computation: the subtraction of sensory expectations. The main difference between the two is that in the case of the cerebellum, the inferior olivary nucleus evolved to ensure prior gating of sensory information to the cerebellar cortex based on whether or not it is expected. Due to the filtering properties of the inferior olivary nucleus, a comparison between the signals carried by the parallel

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