부산대학교 도서관

Simple Summary: Eyeblink conditioning is a simple form of learning that has been used to study areas of the brain involved in how we learn new tasks and how we remember them. One area of the brain that is important for eyeblink conditioning is the cerebellum. Changes that take place in the cerebellum involve a number of neural processes, including changes in the connections between neurons, changes in a neuron's excitability, and even changes in the matrix that surrounds these neurons. Here, we explore these different processes and how they interact with each other to form the building blocks of a basic form of learning. Understanding how learning and memory take place may help us solve the mystery of how we lose the ability to learn and remember in diseases like Alzheimer's disease, and how to we remember too much in post-traumatic stress disorder. Evidence is strong that, in addition to fine motor control, there is an important role for the cerebellum in cognition and emotion. The deep nuclei of the mammalian cerebellum also contain the highest density of perineural nets—mesh-like structures that surround neurons—in the brain, and it appears there may be a connection between these nets and cognitive processes, particularly learning and memory. Here, we review how the cerebellum is involved in eyeblink conditioning—a particularly well-understood form of learning and memory—and focus on the role of perineuronal nets in intrinsic membrane excitability and synaptic plasticity that underlie eyeblink conditioning. We explore the development and role of perineuronal nets and the in vivo and in vitro evidence that manipulations of the perineuronal net in the deep cerebellar nuclei affect eyeblink conditioning. Together, these findings provide evidence of an important role for perineuronal net in learning and memory. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]