Control of movements by the cerebellum

Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore MD

Investigators

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Abstract

This is a request for a Administra�ve Supplement to Promote Diversity in Health-Related Research for the currently ac�ve award 1R37NS128416 to support Alden Naeem, a first-year graduate student in the Biomedical Engineering Program at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine. Her eligibility for the diversity supplement is based on economic disadvantages that she endured throughout her childhood, adolescence, and undergraduate years. The research project that we propose for Alden Naeem is to produce a model of cerebellar disease in a non-human primate, and then use the model to quan�fy ac�vi�es of cells in the model-diseased cerebellum in awake behaving animals. If successful, this will result in a first-ever model of episodic cerebellar disease in a non-human primate. The approach that we will employ is to use chemogene�c technology to transiently, and reversibly, manipulate the ac�vity of Purkinje cells in the cerebellum of marmosets. A sub aim is to compare the ac�vi�es of cells in the cerebellum before and a�er Purkinje cell silencing. Importantly, we will be able to do this comparison in the same neuron because the effects of the chemogene�c silencing are short lived. By recording the ac�vi�es of neurons in the cerebellum when the P-cells are silenced, we will be able to test for a causal link between modula�on of spike rates in the P-cells and their downstream nucleus neurons, and behavioral changes such as endpoint accuracy of movements.