The cerebellum is responsible for making accurate movements and so understanding how it works is crucial to treating movement disorders such as tremor, loss of balance, and speech impairments. Until recently, scientists have been able to observe neuronal signal inputs into the cerebellum and the transformed outputs, but what the brain does with these neuronal signals in between has remained a black box.
Now, as part of an international team of 23 scientists from seven institutions, Neurobiology's Steve Lisberger and David Herzfeld as well as Court Hull and Marie Hemelt have developed an AI tool that can elucidate the neuronal circuits that perform the brain's computations and which different neuron types are involved in these circuits. Says Lisberger, “If you can answer how the circuit works, then you can say how the brain generates behavior.”
Read Angela Spivey's full article in SoM News.
Read the full story in PatientDaily.
Read the full study published April 17 in Cell.