The main objective of this project was to reveal the role of different cerebellar cell types in social interaction and reward processing. To achieve this, we used chronic Neuropixels recording in freely moving mice during self-initiated exploration of social or novel stimuli (three-chamber task), with the aim of generating a library of cerebellar cells and identifying their cell type by their neural signatures.
We recorded neural activity from Crus 1 of the cerebellum during different behavioral states, including random foraging in an open field, exploration of social and non-social novel stimuli, and free social interaction in an open field, in order to investigate the role of cerebellar neurons in social preference.
As part of aims 2-3, we recorded neural activity from the same neurons during a three-chamber test over three days to evaluate how different cerebellar neurons underlie social preference. However, due to around half of the mice not showing the expected social preference reported in the literature, we also recorded neural activity during free social interaction in an open field with two mice allowed to freely interact for 30 minutes. The behavior was recorded and classified into different features such as close interaction, sniffing, chasing, and nonsocial behaviors like grooming, walking, and running. We identified a small number of cells whose activity was correlated with specific behavioral features.
To address aim 4, we used ASD model mice. We performed the same tasks (three-chamber task and free social interaction task) but were unable to identify any significant differences in neural activity recorded from Crus 1 or in behavioral performance.
