In decerebrate cats, sinusoidal rotation of the forepaw around the wrist modifies the activity of the ipsilateral forelimb extensor triceps brachii (TB) and leads to plastic changes of adaptive nature in the gain of vestibulospinal (VS) reflexes (VSRs). Both effects are depressed by functional inactivation of the cerebellar anterior vermis, which also decreases the gain of VSRs. In order to better understand the mechanisms of these phenomena, the simple spike activity of Purkinje (P-) cells was recorded from the vermal cortex of the cerebellar anterior lobe during individual and/or combined stimulation of somatosensory wrist, neck and vestibular receptors. About one third of the recorded units were affected by sinusoidal rotation of the ipsilateral forepaw around the wrist axis (0.16 Hz, +/-10 degrees ). Most of these neurons ( approximately 60%) increased their activity during ventral flexion of the wrist and decreased it during the oppositely directed movement, with an average phase lag of -141 degrees with respect to the position of maximal dorsiflexion. The remaining cells ( approximately 40%) were excited during dorsiflexion of the wrist, with an average phase lead of 59 degrees with respect to the extreme dorsal flexion. Both populations showed comparable response gains, with an average value of 0.42+/-0.52, S.D., imp/s/deg. About half of the recorded units were also tested during sinusoidal roll tilt of the animal around the longitudinal axis (0.16 Hz, +/-10 degrees ), leading to stimulation of labyrinthine receptors. When both stimuli were applied simultaneously, the responses to combined stimulation usually corresponded to the sum of individual responses. While the phase distribution of somatosensory responses was clearly bimodal, vestibular responses showed phase angle values uniformly scattered between +/-180 degrees and 0 degrees , so that, during combined stimulation, each neuron could be maximally activated by coupling the two stimuli with a particular phase relation. Finally, a proportion of the recorded neurons was also tested during sinusoidal rotation of the body around its longitudinal axis, with the head fixed in space, leading to stimulation of neck receptors. The proportion of neurons affected by individual stimulation of vestibular or neck receptors (81% and 72%, respectively) was larger than that of wrist-driven neurons. Convergence of signals from vestibular, somatosensory wrist and neck receptors was found in 18% of the neurons analyzed. In conclusion, the results of this study show that somatosensory signals from the forelimb: i) modulate the activity of a sizeable proportion of neurons located within the cerebellar anterior vermis and ii) interact widely with labyrinthine and neck signals at this level. Moreover, iii) this corticocerebellar region is largely dominated by vestibular and neck signals that may be utilized to build up a neuronal representation of the position of body in space. These findings suggest that: 1) the modulation of TB activity induced by rotation of the ipsilateral wrist may at least partially depend upon the simultaneous changes in P-cell activity and 2) the interaction of vestibular and somatosensory wrist signals at P-cell level may represent the substrate of the plastic changes that affect the VSR when animal tilt and wrist rotation are driven together. A preliminary report of these data has been presented [ Responses of cerebellar Purkinje cells to forepaw rotation in decerebrate cat. Pflügers Arch 440:R31].