THE CEREBELLUM - A NEURONAL LEARNING-MACHINE

Comparison of two seemingly quite different behaviors yields a surpris ingly consistent picture of the role of the cerebellum in motor learni ng, Behavioral and physiological data about classical conditioning of the eyelid response and motor learning in the vestibuloocular reflex s uggest that (i) plasticity is distributed between the cerebellar corte x and the deep cerebellar nuclei; (ii) the cerebellar cortex plays a s pecial role in learning the timing of movement; and (iii) the cerebell ar cortex guides learning in the deep nuclei, which may allow learning to be transferred from the cortex to the deep nuclei. Because many of the similarities in the data from the two systems typify general feat ures of cerebellar organization, the cerebellar mechanisms of learning in these two systems may represent principles that apply to many moto r systems.