Early cerebellar lesions impair eyeblink conditioning in developing rats: differential effects of unilateral lesions on postnatal day 10 or 20.

Experiment 1 demonstrated that the ipsilateral cerebellar hemisphere is essential for the acquisition of eyeblink conditioning in infant rats and that cerebellar lesions given on Postnatal Day 10 (PND10) produced deficits in eyeblink conditioning when given to either hemisphere. For both hemispheres, lesions that were restricted to the cerebellar cortex produced less severe deficits than lesions that included the deep nuclei. Experiment 2 showed that the age at which the cerebellar lesions occurred determined whether damage to the contralateral cerebellar hemisphere impaired conditioning. Lesions of either the ipsilateral or contralateral hemisphere that included the deep nuclei disrupted eyeblink conditioning when given on PND10. In contrast, when lesions were given on PND20, ipsilateral lesions that included the deep nuclei abolished conditioning, while the same lesion given to the contralateral hemisphere had no effect.