POSTER PRESENTATION Open Access Distributed synaptic plasticity controls spike-timing: predictions from a cerebellar computational model

The cerebellum has long been proposed to operate as a “timing machine ” and a “learning machine”, but the intrinsic nature of these operations has not been resolved yet. Interestingly, the cerebellum controls motor behavior with millisecond precision (e.g. in a throwing task), so it is expected that its computations are performed on a comparable time-scale. There are indications that the granular layer is capable of exerting a close control on spike timing. The granule cells generate brief spike bursts in the axon initial segment, which are almost instanta-neously (<0.3 ms) transmitted to the dendrites and to synapses on the axonal ascending branch [1]. Moreover, the mossy fiber-granule cell EPSCs have very fast kinetics (rise time <1 ms) [2] and can therefore excite the granule cells with high temporal precision [3]. Finally, granul