Neuroscience: Spikes timed through inhibition

Abstract

Purkinje cells in the brain region known as the cerebellum act by inhibiting their target neurons. A paper in this issue provides an explanation for how this inhibition might be used to control the timing of action potentials. But experts are not equally convinced about the functional relevance of this finding.

Figure 1. Decoding Purkinje-cell inputs

a, Purkinje cells of the cerebellum send inhibitory inputs (blue bars) to their target nuclear neurons. Consequently, nuclear neurons get little chance to fire action potentials (red lines). b, Person and Raman report that if two or more inhibitory inputs from Purkinje cells are synchronized (longer bars), it creates more opportunities for nuclear neurons to fire action potentials in the gaps between such ‘bundles’ of inhibitory inputs, entraining their spiking. (This graphic is not an exact representation of the authors’ data.)