Research
Robustness effect of gap junctions between Golgi cells on cerebellar cortex oscillations
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* Corresponding author: Erik De Schutter erik@oist.jp
1 Computational Neuroscience Unit, Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology, Okinawa 904-0411, Japan
2 Theoretical Neurobiology, University of Antwerp, B-2610 Antwerpen, Belgium
Neural Systems & Circuits 2011, 1:7 doi:10.1186/2042-1001-1-7
Published: 1 March 2011Abstract
Background
Previous one-dimensional network modeling of the cerebellar granular layer has been successfully linked with a range of cerebellar cortex oscillations observed in vivo. However, the recent discovery of gap junctions between Golgi cells (GoCs), which may cause oscillations by themselves, has raised the question of how gap-junction coupling affects GoC and granular-layer oscillations. To investigate this question, we developed a novel two-dimensional computational model of the GoC-granule cell (GC) circuit with and without gap junctions between GoCs.
Results
Isolated GoCs coupled by gap junctions had a strong tendency to generate spontaneous oscillations without affecting their mean firing frequencies in response to distributed mossy fiber input. Conversely, when GoCs were synaptically connected in the granular layer, gap junctions increased the power of the oscillations, but the oscillations were primarily driven by the synaptic feedback loop between GoCs and GCs, and the gap junctions did not change oscillation frequency or the mean firing rate of either GoCs or GCs.
Conclusion
Our modeling results suggest that gap junctions between GoCs increase the robustness of cerebellar cortex oscillations that are primarily driven by the feedback loop between GoCs and GCs. The robustness effect of gap junctions on synaptically driven oscillations observed in our model may be a general mechanism, also present in other regions of the brain.