Interactions between circuit architecture and plasticity in a closed-loop cerebellar system

A major challenge in neuroscience is to infer the sites and directions of neural plasticity that underlie learned changes in behavior. In particular, abundant feedback pathways in the brain impede reasoning about cause and effect based on neural recording data alone. We approached this problem by studying the interactions between feedback, neural activity, and plasticity in the context of vestibulo-ocular reflex learning, a closed-loop motor learning paradigm.
Our strategy was to fit a series of circuit models to a large set of neural and behavioral data. Each model differed in the strength of efference copy feedback to Purkinje cells, ranging from no feedback to very strong feedback. The primary dataset before learning was obtained from male rhesus monkeys (Macaca mulatta) trained to perform a visual fixation task, and includes neural activity from Purkinje cells in the cerebellar flocculus and horizontal eye velocity measurements in response to a wide range of vestibular and visual st..., Neural and behavioral data before learning (“Dataset 1”) were obtained from two male rhesus monkeys (Macaca mulatta) trained to perform a visual fixation task. A subset of this dataset has been published previously (Kimpo et al., 2014; Raymond & Lisberger, 1998). Briefly, neural responses were recorded extracellularly from Purkinje cells in the floccular complex of the cerebellar cortex while the monkeys made horizontal eye movements in response to various combinations of visual and vestibular stimuli. Vestibular stimuli consisted of passive whole-body rotation in the horizontal plane. Visual stimuli consisted of a horizontally moving target subtending 0.5° of visual angle, which was accompanied by a larger black-and-white pattern subtending 20° to 30° of visual angle for all stimulus conditions except for smooth pursuit. Four combinations of visual and vestibular stimuli were delivered: head movements in the dark (“Vestibular only,” which elicits the VOR), visual target motion with..., , # Data from: Interactions between circuit architecture and plasticity in a closed-loop cerebellar system

[https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.rr4xgxdg6](https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.rr4xgxdg6)

## Description of the data and file structure

Files are stored in matlab (.mat) format

### File naming

Each file contains trial-averaged data for one signal type and one condition.

The **signal types** are:

* \"**head**\": horizontal head velocity, a.k.a. vestibular stimulus [Stimulus]
* \"**target**\": horizontal visual stimulus velocity [Stimulus]
* \"**eye**\": horizontal eye velocity [Response]
* \"**PC**\": Purkinje cell firing rate [Response]

The stimuli are delivered as either sine waves of steps in stimulus velocity. The **conditions** are:

* \"**dark**\": head movements in the dark, which elicits the VOR (\"vestibular only\")
* \"**pursuit**\": visual target motion with the head stationary, which elicits smooth pursuit eye movements (\"visual only\")
* \"**x2**\": visual target and head m...