Purkinje cells, the principal neurons of cerebellar computations, are believed to comprise a uniform neuronal population of cells, each with similar functional properties. Here, we show an undiscovered heterogeneity of adult zebrafish Purkinje cells, revealing the existence of anatomically and functionally distinct cell types. Dual patch-clamp recordings showed that the cerebellar circuit contains all Purkinje cell types that cross-communicate extensively using chemical and electrical synapses. Further activation of spinal central pattern generators (CPGs) revealed unique phase-locked activity from each Purkinje cell type during the locomotor cycle. Thus, we show intricately organized Purkinje cell networks in the adult zebrafish cerebellum that encode the locomotion rhythm differentially, and we suggest that these organizational properties may also apply to other cerebellar functions.

The ability to maintain relevant information on a daily basis is negatively impacted by aging. However, the neuronal mechanism manifesting memory persistence in young animals and memory decline in early aging is not fully understood. A novel event, when introduced around encoding of an everyday memory task, can facilitate memory persistence in young age but not in early aging. Here, we investigated in male rats how sub-regions of the hippocampus are involved in memory representation in behavioral tagging and how early aging affects such representation by combining behavioral training in appetitive delayed-matching-to-place tasks with the “cellular compartment analysis of temporal activity by fluorescence in situ hybridization” technique. We show that neuronal assemblies activated by memory encoding were also partially activated by novelty, particularly in the distal CA1 and proximal CA3 subregions in young male rats. In early aging, both encoding- and novelty-triggered neuronal populations were significantly reduced with a more profound effect in encoding neurons. Thus, memory persistence through novelty facilitation engages overlapping hippocampal assemblies as a key cellular signature, and cognitive aging is associated with underlying reduction in neuronal activation.