Figure 3.

Variability in simple spike and complex spike firing properties of Purkinje cells in awake mice

(A) Schematic of recording setup depicting an awake mouse on a wheel (left). Schematic of cerebellar circuit with Purkinje cell recording (right).

(B) Example mean firing rate (calculated over 0.5 s) trace from a Purkinje cell recording with variability in firing pattern (middle, red). Bottom shows the underlying raw electrophysiological recording trace with simple spikes in gray and complex spikes in green. The higher power view traces (mean waveforms across a 20 s segment of a recording, top. 10 ms scale, below) demonstrate the unique spike profiles that distinguish simple spikes from complex spikes.

(C and D) Mean difference in (C) firing rate, and (D) CV estimate for simple spikes between 100 sample durations and one representative reference duration. Each dot represents the average for 1 cell. Black line represents the mean for all cells included in the analyses.

(E) Number of significant paired t-tests between parameter estimates in 120 s-long reference durations and 100 samples for each sample duration.

(F) Percentage of parameter estimates in 100 samples for each sample duration within 10% deviation of reference duration.

(G and H) as C and D for complex spikes.

(I and J) as E and F for complex spikes. For E, F, I, and J: Mean of 25 sets of 1 reference duration with 100 sample durations each = solid line; ± SEM = shaded region. Firing rate is shown in oxblood red, CV in orange, CV2 in pink.