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Comment
. 2013 Mar 19:2:e00641.
doi: 10.7554/eLife.00641.

Multitasking on the run

Affiliations
Comment

Multitasking on the run

Mary E Hatten et al. Elife. .

Abstract

Researchers combine genetics and imaging to reveal that individual granule cells in the cerebellum integrate sensory and motor information.

Keywords: Mouse; cerebellum; corollary discharge; proprioception.

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Conflict of interest statement

Competing interests:The authors declare that no competing interests exist.

Figures

Figure 1.
Figure 1.. The cerebellum integrates motor and sensory signals, which allows us to learn and perfect complex motor skills.
The signals are relayed to the cerebellum by mossy fibers: copies of motor commands sent by the cerebral cortex are relayed via the pontine nucleus (green), while sensory signals are relayed from the spinal cord via the external cuneate nucleus (red). Inset: Expanded view of the cerebellum showing mossy fibers (red and green) that have formed synapses with the dendrites of granule neurons (yellow). More than 40% of the granule cells studied by Huang et al. received inputs from both sensory (red) and motor (green) mossy fibers. The axons of the granule neurons (yellow) ascend into the molecular layer of the cerebellum, where they bifurcate to form parallel fibers: large numbers of parallel fibers can form synapses with a single Purkinje cell (gray). The climbing fibers are not shown.

Comment on

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