Beerend Winkelman

Role of the cerebellum in motor performance and learning (funded by ERC, Veni, ZonMw and EU-NeuroTime).

We are investigating to what extent and how cerebellar processing mediates motor performance and learning in health and disease. We hypothesize that potentiation and suppression mechanisms mediate motor coordination in the Zebrin-positive and Zebrin-negative cerebellar modules, respectively. So far, all components investigated at the molecular, cellular and systems level indicate that these mechanisms play a critical role during physiological motor operations in healthy controls as well as in the compensatory mechanisms that come into play in subjects suffering from cerebellar disease.