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Action-based organization of a cerebellar module specialized for predictive control of multiple body parts
Journal article   Open access   Peer reviewed

Action-based organization of a cerebellar module specialized for predictive control of multiple body parts

Shane A. Heiney, Gregory J. Wojaczynski and Javier F. Medina
Neuron (Cambridge, Mass.), Vol.109(18), pp.2981-2994.e5
09/15/2021
DOI: 10.1016/j.neuron.2021.08.017
PMCID: PMC8513160
PMID: 34534455
url
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuron.2021.08.017View
Published (Version of record) Open Access

Abstract

The role of the cerebellum in predictive motor control and coordination has been thoroughly studied during movements of a single body part. In the real world, however, actions are often more complex. Here, we show that a small area in the rostral anterior interpositus nucleus (rAIN) of the mouse cerebellum is responsible for generating a predictive motor synergy that serves to protect the eye by precisely coordinating muscles of the eyelid, neck, and forelimb. Within the rAIN region, we discovered a new functional category of neurons with unique properties specialized for control of motor synergies. These neurons integrated inhibitory cutaneous inputs from multiple parts of the body, and their activity was correlated with the vigor of the defensive motor synergy on a trial-by-trial basis. We propose that some regions of the cerebellum are organized in poly-somatotopic “action maps” to reduce dimensionality and simplify motor control during ethologically relevant behaviors. •Mice learn a defensive movement requiring coordination of multiple body parts•Cerebellar rostral anterior interpositus nucleus (rAIN) drives the entire movement•A population of rAIN neurons with specialized receptive fields encode the movement•Some modules of the cerebellum are organized based on an action map Heiney et al. identify a small region of the cerebellum specialized for generating a predictive defensive movement that requires coordination of multiple body parts. They suggest that the cerebellum has a dual-map organization in which action-based modules for controlling ethologically relevant behaviors co-exist with the conventional body map.
 action map active avoidance coordination eyeblink homunculus modular architecture motor primitive Pavlovian conditioning somatotopy

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