Fig. 5. Chronic perturbation of Purkinje cells in cerebellar lobule simplex.

a Targeted chronic lesions of Purkinje cell populations were enabled by a retrograde viral vector encoding a Cre-dependent construct for Diptheria Toxin A (dTA) and mCherry (rAAV-mCherry-flex-dTA). Mice trained on the Wide condition (PCP2-Cre-eYFP) were injected after the crystallization of behavioral performance metrics. Progression is denoted in three stages: pre-injection (blue), early post (light green, began 7–10 days after injection), and late post-injection (dark green). b A coronal section from the test group (left) shows that the construct was injected (in orange, rAAV-mCherry) in the anterior interposed (AIN) the downstream target of lobule simplex (inset marks A-P position on a schematic of a sagittal section) Purkinje cells (green, indicated Cre and eYFP). In contrast, a coronal section from the control group (right, N = 4) with the same staining shows that the construct was injected in the posterior interposed (PIN). c A confocal image of the Simplex lobule for the test group shows that the presence of mCherry (orange), indicated viral particles, coincides with the absence of Purkinje cells (green), and the presence of a cell death marker glial fibrillary acidic protein (GFAP in white). Results were confirmed in N = 4 mice. d Behavioral metric comparison for A_CR and predictive response percentage (CR percentage) within training sessions. Large circles indicate session averages and dots indicate individual trials in the pre (blue) and post (green) injection phases. e Metric comparisons for test (left) and control (right) groups for pre, early and late post-injection stages for A_CR  (ANOVA F(2,6) = 4.75, p = 0.047) and CR percentage (ANOVA F(2,6) = 4.89, p = 0.04). ‘*’ represents an alpha of 0.05. Circles connected by black lines indicate averages and gray lines indicate individuals. Error bars represent standard error.