Effect of cerebellar reversible inactivations on the acquisition of trace conditioned eyeblink responses in guinea pigs: Comparison of short and long trace intervals

The cerebellum has been proved to be essential for the acquisition of delay eyeblink conditioning, but its contribution to the acquisition of trace eyeblink conditioning (TEBC) has not been fully determined. In the present study, using chemically reversible inactivation techniques, we examined the relative contribution of ipsilateral cerebellum to the acquisition of TEBC using different time length of trace interval (TI) in guinea pigs. It was found that inactivations of the left intermediate cerebellum with a GABAA receptor agonist muscimol during training completely prevented the acquisition of TEBC using a relatively short (50 ms) TI, instead of the acquisition of TEBC using a relatively long (250 ms) TI. However, inactivations of the left intermediate cerebellum totally abolished the well-established left trace conditioned eyeblink responses (CRs) regardless of the time length of TI. These results suggested that while the ipsilateral cerebellum is essential for the expression of trace CRs, its contribution to the acquisition of trace CRs appears to mainly depend on the time length of TI.