EVENT DETAILS AND ABSTRACT

Title: Cellular basis for time computations in the cerebellum: multi- threshold model of electric activation in cerebellar Purkinje cell dendrites
Speaker: Stephane Genet, Universite Pierre et Marie Curie
Speaker Info: Paris
Brief Description:
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Abstract:

This seminar will present a system of parabolic, partial differential equations that was derived from biophysical data to investigate the membrane mechanisms endowing Purkinje cell dendrites with the ability to produce fast (1ms) Ca-spikes and prolonged (several hundreds of ms) low amplitude plateau potentials. These mechanisms will be discussed using a phase-plane representation of the spatially homogenous version of the model. Bifurcation of this system will be presented to show how its responses to a brief input can be changed by the level of tonic excitation, together with an analysis of the full model for the propagation of these responses in the dendritic tree. We will show how Purkinje cell dendritic computations may solve the time- problem in the trace paradigm of the classical conditioning of the eyelid by envisioning the background activation of parallel fibers as the physiological counterpart of the tonic excitation in the model.