A European collaboration on cerebellar LTD and pattern recognition

We review the main results of a study on how the effects of cerebellar long-term depression are reflected in Purkinje cell spiking. An initial modeling study produced surprising results: when actual spike trains were simulated it was predicted that synaptic depression resulted in an increase of the spiking output. Subsequent collaboration with another team led to the confirmation of the main results using patch clamp recordings in in vitro cerebellar slices, which suggested additional modeling. A third team provided supporting data from in vivo cerebellar recordings. This group effort provides useful insights into ethical and professional issues concerning collaborations between modelers and experimentalists in neuroscience.