Effect of Anesthesia on Spontaneous Activity and Evoked Potentials of the Cerebellar Cortex

Cerebellum is a highly organized structure with a crystalline morphology that has always intrigued neuroscientists. Much of the cerebellar research has been conducted in anesthetized animals, particularly using ketamine and xylazine combination. It is not clear how the cerebellar cortical circuitry is affected by anesthesia. In this study, we have recorded spontaneous and evoked potentials from the cerebellar surface with chronically implanted, flexible-substrate, multi-electrode arrays. The frequency contents of the spontaneous activity suggest that ketamine/xylazine anesthesia suppresses most of the components except those below 30 Hz. This preliminary study also showed that multi channels of cerebellar cortical activity can be recorded using flexible multielectrode arrays in behaving animals, which is very challenging task with single microelectrodes.