Neural Mechanisms of Vestibular Function

The goal of this renewal application is to establish the principles and circuits linking vestibular signals to HD cells in the anterior thalamus through three aims. The first two aims will test theory-driven hypotheses about the self-motion signal that updates the ring attractor, disentangling contributions of self-motion velocity input and brain state to HD tuning strength. Experiments will show that passive rotations are as effective in updating the HD attractor as active foraging, and will test model-driven hypotheses about their multisensory properties. Aim 3 involves genetically and optogenetically manipulating large or discrete regions of the cerebellum while monitoring the activity of HD cells in anterodorsal and laterodorsal thalamus, to understand the role of multisensory cerebellar signals in maintaining internal models about rotation velocity and gravity.