Serotonergic Modulation of Cerebellar Function

描述(申请人提供)：5-羟色胺(5-羟色胺)是大脑中一种重要的神经调节剂，在小脑中广泛存在，这是一个与运动协调和运动学习密切相关的区域。尽管许多生理学研究描述了5-羟色胺对小脑神经元的各种调制作用，但仍然没有关于5-羟色胺如何改变电路水平的功能，进而改变行为的有意义的解释。我建议研究小脑5-羟色胺对小鼠两种简单眼球运动--前庭-眼反射(VOR)和视动反射(OKR)的影响。这些眼球运动行为背后的神经回路已被详细了解，并涉及小脑的绒毛状区。其他实验将通过测量小脑皮质的输出细胞，即绒毛浦肯野细胞，来检验5-羟色胺对与VOR和OKR相关的神经信号的电路水平处理的影响。最后，我将研究小脑5-羟色胺在不同形式的VOR学习的诱导中的作用。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Serotonin (5-HT), an important neuromodulator in the brain, is found throughout the cerebellum, a region critically involved in motor coordination and motor learning. Despite numerous physiological studies describing various modulatory actions of 5-HT on cerebellar neurons, there is still no meaningful account of how 5-HT modulation alters circuit-level functioning and, in turn, modifies behavior. I propose to examine the effects of cerebellar 5-HT on the performance of two simple eye movements, the vestibulo-ocular reflex (VOR) and optokinetic reflex (OKR) in mice. The neural circuits underlying these oculomotor behaviors are known in detail and involve the floccular regions of the cerebellum. Additional experiments will examine the effects of 5-HT on circuit-level processing of neural signals related to the VOR and OKR by measuring the output cells of the cerebellar cortex, the floccular Purkinje cells. Lastly, I will investigate the role of cerebellar 5HT to the induction of different forms of VOR learning.