Host: Prof. Aihua Chen, East China Normal University
Abstract
Our laboratory studies the role of the vestibulocerebellum (Nodulus/Uvula and Flocculus) in visual-vestibular signal processing and spatial navigation. We use various experimental techniques, including single-unit recordings, pharmacology, behavioral neuroscience, neurogenetics, immunohistochemistry, and computational neuroscience. In this talk, I will present the results of our landmark studies in primates and mice, where we showed that cerebellar nodulus and uvula perform a key computation for spatial navigation. Our previous work showed that the output neurons of the cerebellum (Purkinje cells) carry linear acceleration (translation) information. In a series of landmark studies in rhesus monkeys, we described in detail the signal carried by these Purkinje cells and showed that somewhere upstream from NU output neurons, there must be a spatial and temporal signal transformation that involves the integration of canal signal and its combination with otolith related information. In a recent series of experiments, we investigated the nature of these signal transformations - specifically, whether the spatiotemporal signal transformations described above occur within the NU or upstream of it. We used two different strategies to tackle this question. First, using minute injections of GABA-A receptor antagonist (gabazine) to disrupt local cerebellar processing in the macaque monkey, we found that all canal-related information is removed from Purkinje cell responses, indicating that the canal signal transformations happen locally within the cerebellar NU. Second, using transgenic mice with compromised cerebellar cortex function (L7-PKCI mice), we showed that the integration of the canal signal occurs upstream of Purkinje cells and that protein kinase C-dependent mechanisms regulate the gain of the translation signal but not the canal signal.
Biography
Dr. Yakusheva received her Ph.D. from the Saratov State University and Peoples’ Friendship University of Russia. She joined Dora Angelaki's laboratory as a postdoctoral fellow, where she investigated the vestibular and visual signal processing by vestibulocerebellum. Dr. Yakusheva is now an Assistant Professor of Department of Otolaryngology at the Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis. Her laboratory focuses uses different animal models and approaches to understand cerebellar function and its circuitry under normal and pathological conditions.