Hardware Implementation of the Cerebellar Neural Network with Conductance-based Models

Cerebellar cortex plays a vital role in motor learning. To investigate the functions of the cerebellar cortex, a hardware model simulating the cerebellar cortex is implemented on a FPGA chip with the dynamics of the functional cerebellum. The conductance-based models are used to realize the functions of the cerebellar cells and three types of synaptic current models are used to realize the interactions among these cells. The cerebellar models implemented on FPGA can respond the stimulus in 0.02ms, which makes the hardware model more flexible. The hardware model simulates different firing rates of Purkinje cells with different afferent stimulus, so that the action potential maps of five types of cerebellar cells are obtained on the oscilloscope. The results of the hardware implementation are consistent with the biological dynamics of the mammalian cerebellar, which means the functional cerebellum model is reliable and feasible.