Nate Sawtell: connectivity underlying the generation of predictions in a cerebellum-like circuit

Many vertebrate brains contain both a cerebellum and one or more sensory processing structures with similarities to the cerebellum in terms of their development, gene expression, circuitry, and physiology. I will discuss our work on mechanisms for adaptive sensory processing in one such structure, the electrosensory lobe (ELL) of weakly electric mormyrid fish. Specifically, I will discuss recent efforts using connectomic approaches to understand how synaptic plasticity distributed across multiple cell types and processing stages generates and subtracts predictions of the sensory consequences of motor commands. Similarities and differences between the circuitry and function of the ELL and the cerebellum will be discussed.
Nate Sawtell is a Professor of Neuroscience at the Zuckerman Mind Brain Behavior Institute at Columbia University. He received a PhD from Brown University where he worked with Mark Bear on experience-dependent plasticity in the mouse visual cortex. He then did a postdoctoral fellowship at Oregon Health and Science University with Curtis Bell where he began working on cerebellum-like circuits in electric fish.

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Thank you.