Understanding the cerebellum

The cerebellum is the part of the brain that governs motor control and learning. Given that neuronal plasticity is central to the process of learning, understanding how plasticity forms in the cerebellum and how this part of the brain computes its signals could have important consequences for health and disease.

With EU funding, the 'Cerebellar-cortical control: Cells, circuits, computation, and clinic' (C7) project brought under the same umbrella leading experts in neuroscience to study cerebellar networks. During the project 17 young researchers were trained by the network participants in various aspects of neuroscience.

The key objectives were to delineate the neuronal activity in the cerebellum and understand how changes in neuronal synapses lead to learning. For this purpose, the consortium utilised electrophysiology, behavioural and clinical research, computational modelling and neuroimaging.

Researchers made significant technical advances in the recording of cerebellar neurons to study how the cerebellum exchanges information with the rest of the brain. This would allow prediction of behavioural phenotypes from neuronal activity in the cerebellum.

From a clinical perspective, they examined the neuronal events implicated in the rehabilitation of cerebellar patients and in degeneration. They also generated important insight into the mechanism of transcranial direct current stimulation, a method used to enhance learning. Additional roles of the cerebellum in learning the timing and order of sequential movements, and in language processing and prediction were investigated.

Through the training of the next generation of neuroscientists, the consortium worked to promote neuroscience and especially the study of the cerebellum.