PHYSIOLOGICAL-BASIS FOR MOTOR LEARNING IN THE VESTIBULOOCULAR REFLEX

The vestibule-ocular reflex has been used extensively for study of the neural mechanisms of learning that is dependent on an intact cerebell um. Anatomic, physiologic, behavioral, and computational approaches ha ve revealed the neural circuits that are used to generate the vestibul e-ocular reflex and have identified two likely sites of plasticity wit hin those circuits, One site of plasticity is in the vestibular inputs to floccular target neurons, which are located in the vestibular nucl ei and receive monosynaptic inhibition from Purkinje cells in the floc cular complex of the cerebellar cortex, The other site of plasticity i s in the vestibular inputs to Purkinje cells in the floccular complex, possibly in the cerebellar cortex, After reviewing the evidence that supports these conclusions, I consider a number of observations showin g that the dynamics of neural circuits or cellular mechanisms play imp ortant roles in learning in the vestibule-ocular reflex.