Delta Oscillations Coordinate Intracerebellar and Cerebello-Hippocampal Network Dynamics during Sleep

Abstract

During sleep, the widespread coordination of neuronal oscillations across both cortical and subcortical brain regions is thought to support various physiological functions. However, how sleep-related activity within the brain's largest sensorimotor structure, the cerebellum, is multiplexed with well-described sleep-related mechanisms in regions such as the hippocampus remains unknown. We therefore simultaneously recorded from the dorsal hippocampus and three distinct regions of the cerebellum (Crus I, lobule VI, and lobules II/III) in male mice during natural sleep. Local field potential (LFP) oscillations were found to be coordinated between these structures in a sleep stage-specific manner. During non-REM sleep, prominent δ frequency coherence was observed between lobule VI and hippocampus, whereas non-REM-associated hippocampal sharp-wave ripple activity evoked discrete LFP modulation in all recorded cerebellar regions, with the shortest latency effects in lobule VI. We also describe discrete phasic sharp potentials (PSPs), which synchronize across cerebellar regions and trigger sharp-wave ripple suppression. During REM, cerebellar δ phase significantly modulated hippocampal theta frequency, and this effect was greatest when PSPs were abundant. PSPs were phase-locked to cerebellar δ oscillation peak and hippocampal theta oscillation trough, respectively. Within all three cerebellar regions, prominent LFP oscillations were observed at both low (δ, <4 Hz) and very high frequencies (∼250 Hz) during non-REM and REM sleep. Intracerebellar cross-frequency analysis revealed that δ oscillations modulate those in the very high-frequency range. Together, these results reveal multiple candidate physiological mechanisms to support “offline,” bidirectional interaction within distributed cerebello-hippocampal networks.SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENTSleep is associated with widespread coordination of activity across a range of brain regions. However, little is known about how activity within the largest sensorimotor region of the brain, the cerebellum, is both intrinsically organized and links with higher-order structures, such as the hippocampus, during sleep. By making multisite local field potential recordings in naturally sleeping mice, we reveal and characterize multiple sleep stage-specific physiological mechanisms linking three distinct cerebellar regions with the hippocampus. Central to these physiological mechanisms is a prominent δ (<4 Hz) oscillation, which temporally coordinates both intracerebellar and cerebello-hippocampal network dynamics. Understanding this distributed network activity is important for gaining insight into cerebellar contributions to sleep-dependent processes, such as memory consolidation.