Everyday life is filled with essential tasks that depend on our ability to control our movements finely and precisely. This ability, called motor control, is chiefly dependent on two brain regions: the cortex and the cerebellum. These regions communicate indirectly via the cortico-cerebellar pathway. The underlying mechanisms of motor control are not completely understood. The work in this thesis seeks to clarify some of these mechanisms by focusing on the basilar pontine nuclei (bPN), which form a critical node along the cortico-cerebellar pathway. The contribution of the bPN to cortico-cerebellar signaling has long been a subject of debate. Although the bPN are generally considered a simple relay structure between the cortex and cerebellum, some studies suggest that they might play a more active role. The work in thesis presents an analysis of the organization and some fundamental properties of bPN neurons and proposes a new unifying hypothesis on their role in the cortico-cerebellar pathway.
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