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Focused Review ARTICLE

The critical role of Golgi cells in regulating spatio-temporal integration and plasticity at the cerebellum input stage

Department of Cellular and Molecular Physiological and Pharmacological Sciences, University of Pavia and CNISM, Pavia, Italy

The discovery of the Golgi cell is bound to the foundation of the Neuron Doctrine. Recently, the excitable mechanisms of this inhibitory interneuron have been investigated with modern experimental and computational techniques raising renewed interest for the implications it might have for cerebellar circuit functions. Golgi cells are pacemakers with preferential response frequency and phase-reset in the theta-frequency band and can therefore impose specific temporal dynamics to granule cell responses. Moreover, through their connectivity, Golgi cells determine the spatio-temporal organization of cerebellar activity. Finally, Golgi cells, by controlling granule cell depolarization and NMDA channel unblock, regulate the induction of long-term synaptic plasticity at the mossy fiber – granule cell synapse. Thus, the Golgi cells can exert an extensive control on spatio-temporal signal organization and information storage in the granular layer playing a critical role for cerebellar computation.

Keywords:

Golgi cell, cerebellum, synaptic inhibition, LTP and LTD

Citation:

DÃ‚Â’Angelo E (2008). The critical role of Golgi cells in regulating spatio-temporal integration and plasticity at the cerebellum input stage. Front. Neurosci. 2,1: 35-46 doi: 10.3389/neuro.01.008.2008

Received:

11 April 2008;

Paper pending published:

12 June 2008;

Accepted:

12 June 2008;

Published online:

15 July 2008.

Edited by:

Alexander Borst, Max Planck Institute of Neurobiology, Germany

Reviewed by:

Yosef Yarom, Hebrew University, Israel
Michael Hausser, University College London, UK

© 2008 D’Angelo. This is an open-access article subject to an exclusive license agreement between the authors and the Frontiers Research Foundation, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original authors and source are credited.

*Correspondence:

Egidio D’Angelo, Department of Cellular and Molecular Physiological and Pharmacological Sciences, University of Pavia and CNISM, Via Forlanini 6, I-27100 Pavia, Italy, e-mail: dangelo@unipv.it