The cerebellum is a region of the brain that helps us refine our movements and learn new motor skills. Patients and mouse models experience many kinds of abnormal movements when their cerebellum is damaged. They can have uncoordinated and unbalanced movements, called ataxia.
They can have atypical positioning of body parts or uncontrolled movements because their muscles are working against each other, called dystonia. Or they can have disruptive shaky movements, called tremors. Understanding how changes in a single brain region can result in such a diverse range of motor defects has been a longstanding question in the field.
A recent study from the laboratory of Dr. Roy V. Sillitoe, a professor at Baylor College of Medicine, and the Chao Family Endowed Chair and a principal investigator at the Jan and Dan Duncan Neurological Research Institute (Duncan NRI) at Texas Children's Hospital, found that the way cerebellar neurons communicate with other brain regions is different in various movement disorders.
The team found unique cerebellar activity patterns responsible for different abnormal movements. This work provides a foundational framework for new treatment approaches to movement disorders. The study was published in eLife.
"Brain cells communicate with each other through neural signals," co-first and co-corresponding author of the study, Dr. Meike van der Heijden said. "Those signals occur in specific patterns that represent a code for specific behaviors.
Studying the code .
