The cerebellum is a major brain region that is critical for motor coordination. How the cerebellum forms its output signals is currently not known. Not only is this information critical for our basic understanding of cerebellar function, but it also has important applications, such as designing control strategies to allow robots to move in complex, dynamic environments (i.e., natural surroundings), and developing more effective rehabilitation strategies following brain damage or disease. The main goal of this grant is to investigate how cerebellar output is generated. The cerebellum consists of an outer shell or cortex, and central nuclei. The cortex provides the major input to the nuclei, and the nuclei in turn generate the commands sent to the rest of the nervous system. Thus, the general issue stated above can be reformulated in specific terms: how does the cortex modulate the activity of the nuclear cells? This question will be investigated using an electrophysiological approach in which microelectrode arrays record the electrical activity of large numbers of neurons in the cerebellar cortex and nuclei simultaneously. This approach will allow us to overcome hurdles that have hindered past progress on this issue. For example, the large arrays will allow us to find cortical and nuclear cells that are connected to each other, so that the exact impact of one cell on another can be determined, rather than relying on population statistics for comparisons. In fortunate cases large groups of cortical cells that all connect to a particular nuclear cell can be identified, which will let us study how a group of cortical cells interacts to control a particular nuclear neuron. Looking at group activity is key to understanding cerebellar function, because cortical neurons within a group have highly correlated activity, and we believe that the patterns of correlated activity are the main determinants of nuclear neuron activity, rather than the activity of any one particular cortical cell. The Principle Investigator expects to find that synchronous cortical activity will silence nuclear cell activity. In sum, increasing our understanding of the cerebellum is important both for basic scientific reasons, and because the results could impact several applied fields, including those mentioned above. For example, the motor control abilities of modern robots and machines (e.g., airplanes) are extremely primitive compared with those of animals, and generally designed for highly specialized static environments; understanding the principles underlying motor coordination in animals may allow us to use these principles for designing devices that have superior and more adaptable motor control abilities.
The laboratory is committed to community outreach and improving general scientific education. The principle investigator (1) meets with students annually in a local middle school as part of a program that tries to expose these students to the scientific process; (2) accepts minority students for summer research rotations as part of NYU's SURP program (summer undergraduate research program); (3) teaches or directs several neuroscience courses for graduate and medical students; and (4) has co-authored the Neuroscience section of Berne and Levy's Physiology 6th ed.
