Chemical suppression of harmaline-induced body tremor yields recovery of pairwise neuronal coherence in cerebellar nuclei neurons

• Published in: Frontiers in systems neuroscience 2023-05, Vol.17, p.1135799
• Main Authors: Baumel, Yuval, Yamin, Hagar Grazya, Cohen, Dana
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: cerebellum; chronic recordings; harmaline; Neuroscience; oscillations; synchrony; tremor
• ISSN: 1662-5137; 1662-5137
• DOI: 10.3389/fnsys.2023.1135799

Neuronal oscillations occur in health and disease; however, their characteristics can differ across conditions. During voluntary movement in freely moving rats, cerebellar nuclei (CN) neurons display intermittent but coherent oscillations in the theta frequency band (4-12 Hz). However, in the rat harmaline model of essential tremor, a disorder attributed to cerebellar malfunction, CN neurons display aberrant oscillations concomitantly with the emergence of body tremor. To identify the oscillation features that may underlie the emergence of body tremor, we analyzed neuronal activity recorded chronically from the rat CN under three conditions: in freely behaving animals, in harmaline-treated animals, and during chemical suppression of the harmaline-induced body tremor. Suppression of body tremor did not restore single neuron firing characteristics such as firing rate, the global and local coefficients of variation, the likelihood of a neuron to fire in bursts or their tendency to oscillate at a variety of dominant frequencies. Similarly, the fraction of simultaneously recorded neuronal pairs oscillating at a similar dominant frequency (