Topographical investigations on the climbing fiber inputs from forelimb and hindlimb afferents to the cerebellar anterior lobe

Summary

Volleys in group I and II fibers of muscle nerves and group II fibers of cutaneous, joint and fascial nerves have evoked CF responses in the anterior lobe of the cerebellum. In the pars intermedia there is a fairly sharp somatotopic localization of the forelimb CF responses to the Vth lobule (Larsell) and the hindlimb to the IVth and IIIrd lobules. In the vermis there is much more admixture, with the hindlimb-evoked responses tending to dominate in the lateral vermis of the Vth lobule, and the forelimb more medially. In the IVth and IIIrd lobules forelimb responses were rare and were never large. In the medial vermis up to 1–1.7 mm from the midline there were no CF-evoked responses from the limb nerves. These distributions of CF-evoked responses are remarkably different from those reported by Oscarsson, and consideration is given to the factors responsible for this discrepancy.

A more detailed examination was made of the CF-evoked responses from a large variety of hindlimb and forelimb nerves. Observations were made along many tracks usually arranged in a transverse plane, and it was found that between different recording sites along the same track or along adjacent tracks, there was a great deal of variation in the relative magnitudes of the CF-evoked responses from the different nerves. These distributions have an ill-defined patchy character so that at any focus there is opportunity for the most diverse kinds of piecemeal integration.

These findings on the CF-input are considered in relationship to the mossy fiber input. It is pointed out that the pathways conveying CF-input to the cerebellum have a level of discriminative input adequate for the operation of fine control.