Capacity of the horizontal vestibuloocular reflex motor learning in goldfish.

The vestibuloocular reflex (VOR) stabilizes visual image on the retina during head motion by counter-rotating the eyes in the orbit. It indicates a type of learning called motor learning by which changes in system characteristics due to development, aging etc. are adaptively compensated to achieve visual stabilization. Presently, we evaluated the capacity of the horizontal VOR motor learning in goldfish to argue the limitation in their learning ability and to identify the neuronal sites that is capable of achieving the learning task. We demonstrate that goldfish VOR can be modified in the opposite directions for right and leftward head rotations simultaneously. The roles of cerebellum to achieve this learning are discussed.