Homologous organization of cerebellar pathways to sensory, motor, and associative forebrain. Author Thomas Pisano, Zahra Dhanerawala, Mikhail Kislin, Dariya Bakshinskaya, Esteban Engel, Ethan Hansen, Austin Hoag, Junuk Lee, Nina de Oude, Kannan Venkataraju, Jessica Verpeut, Freek Hoebeek, Ben Richardson, Henk-Jan Boele, Samuel Wang Publication Year 2021 Type Journal Article Abstract Cerebellar outputs take polysynaptic routes to reach the rest of the brain, impeding conventional tracing. Here, we quantify pathways between the cerebellum and forebrain by using transsynaptic tracing viruses and a whole-brain analysis pipeline. With retrograde tracing, we find that most descending paths originate from the somatomotor cortex. Anterograde tracing of ascending paths encompasses most thalamic nuclei, especially ventral posteromedial, lateral posterior, mediodorsal, and reticular nuclei. In the neocortex, sensorimotor regions contain the most labeled neurons, but we find higher densities in associative areas, including orbital, anterior cingulate, prelimbic, and infralimbic cortex. Patterns of ascending expression correlate with c-Fos expression after optogenetic inhibition of Purkinje cells. Our results reveal homologous networks linking single areas of the cerebellar cortex to diverse forebrain targets. We conclude that shared areas of the cerebellum are positioned to provide sensory-motor information to regions implicated in both movement and nonmotor function. Keywords Animals, Cerebellum, Mice, Mice, Inbred C57BL, Female, Male, Neural Pathways, Cerebral Cortex, Mice, Transgenic, Simplexvirus, Genetic Vectors, Proto-Oncogene Proteins c-fos, Thalamic Nuclei Journal Cell Rep Volume 36 Issue 12 Pages 109721 Date Published 2021 Sep 21 ISSN Number 2211-1247 DOI 10.1016/j.celrep.2021.109721 Alternate Journal Cell Rep PMCID PMC8506234 PMID 34551311 PubMedPubMed CentralGoogle ScholarBibTeXEndNote X3 XML