Cerebellar malfunction can lead to sleep disturbance such as excessive daytime sleepiness, suggesting that the cerebellum may be involved in regulating sleep and/or wakefulness. However, understanding the features of cerebellar regulation in sleep and wakefulness states requires a detailed characterization of neuronal activity within this area. By performing multiple-unit recordings in mice, we showed that Purkinje cells (PCs) in the cerebellar cortex exhibited increased firing activity prior to the transition from sleep to wakefulness. Notably, the increased PC activity resulted from the inputs of low-frequency non-PC units in the cerebellar cortex. Moreover, the increased PC activity was accompanied by decreased activity in neurons of the deep cerebellar nuclei at the non-rapid eye-movement sleep-wakefulness transition. Our results provide in vivo electrophysiological evidence that the cerebellum has the potential to actively regulate the sleep-wakefulness transition.

中文翻译：

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小鼠睡眠-觉醒过渡期间小脑的神经元活动。

小脑功能障碍可导致睡眠障碍，例如白天过度嗜睡，这表明小脑可能参与调节睡眠和/或觉醒。然而，了解睡眠和清醒状态下小脑调节的特征需要对该区域内的神经元活动进行详细表征。通过对小鼠进行多单元记录，我们发现小脑皮层中的浦肯野细胞 (PC) 在从睡眠过渡到清醒之前表现出增加的放电活动。值得注意的是，PC 活动的增加是由小脑皮层中低频非 PC 单元的输入引起的。此外，在非快速眼动睡眠-觉醒转换时，PC 活性的增加伴随着小脑深部核神经元的活性降低。我们的结果提供体内电生理证据表明小脑具有主动调节睡眠-觉醒过渡的潜力。