Figure 1. Alteration of Purkinje cell activity during free whisking.

(A) Videography of a head-restrained mouse with four traced whiskers (from row C, labeled in green). (B) Simplified diagram of the cerebellar circuit (cf: climbing fiber; gc: granule cell; PC: Purkinje cell; pf: parallel fiber; mf: mossy fiber; MI: molecular layer interneuron). (C) PC electrical activity in awake behaving mice, acquired via cell-attached and whole cell patch clamp recordings. Asterisks highlight the incidence of complex spiking. (D) Observed behavior of PC that increased simple spike (SS) frequency during spontaneous whisker movements (gray shading), including (top) traced whisker position (green; upward deflections indicate protraction), (middle) corresponding SS and CS trains, and (bottom) SS instantaneous firing rate histogram (bin size: 100 ms). (E) Observed behavior of PC that decreased SS frequency during spontaneous whisking. (F) Scatter plot showing relative SS firing rate changes during whisking with respect to non-whisking baseline firing rates for all significantly modulated units (p<0.05, n = 47, Mann-Whitney-Wilcoxon test). Red and blue symbols indicate increasing (n = 40) and decreasing (n = 7) PCs, respectively. (G) Relative SS firing rate changes with respect to baseline firing rate between quiet wakefulness and free whisking for all modulated cells (red: increasing PCs, blue: decreasing PCs).

DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.7554/eLife.10509.003

Figure 1—figure supplement 1. Influence of locomotion on simple spike rate alteration during free whisking.

(A) The fraction of time from all recordings (n = 47) that mice were engaged in locomotion during whisking was very small. (B) Distribution of whisker positions during a single recording session within epochs of whisking alone (pink), and whisking and locomotion (yellow). Locomotion was associated with a protraction of whisker position. (C) Mean whisker position during whisking alone, and during whisking plus locomotion for all recordings in which mice ran (n = 10, see Materials and methods). On average, locomotion was associated with a protraction of 5.5 ± 1.7 degrees. (D) SS firing rates during whisking alone and with locomotion. Running was associated with a significant elevation (p = 0.03) in SS rate across the population.

DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.7554/eLife.10509.004

Figure 1—figure supplement 2. Complex spike rate alteration during free whisking.

(A) Relative CS firing rate changes during whisking with respect to non-whisking CS rates for all significantly modulated units (n = 33, Mann-Whitney-Wilcoxon test, p<0.05). Red and blue symbols depict PCs with increasing (n = 22) and decreasing (n = 11) firing rates respectively. (B) Scatter plot of relative changes in CS- versus SS rate with respect to baseline firing rate for PCs that displayed significant modulation in both CS and SS during whisking (n = 22). No correlation was observed between directions of CS and SS modulation for individual PCs.

DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.7554/eLife.10509.005