A cerebellar damage influences the morphological pattern of striatal interneurons

Abstract

Event Abstract Back to Event A cerebellar damage influences the morphological pattern of striatal interneurons Paola De-Bartolo1, 2*, Francesca Gelfo2, 3, Andrea De-Giorgio4, Alberto Granato4 and Laura Petrosini1, 2 1 University of Rome “Sapienza”, Department of Psychology, Italy 2 IRCCS, Italy 3 University of Naples “Parthenope”, Faculty of Motor Science, Italy 4 Catholic University, Department of Psychology, Italy Recent findings proposed that the cerebellum and striatum, key structures in motor control, are more interconnected than commonly believed. Namely, it has been demonstrated that the cerebellar nuclei do project to the striatum. The discovery of this connection raises the possibility that the cerebellar output may influence activity and morphology of striatal neurons. It is important to underline that cerebellar damage elicits motor symptoms that are gradually and efficiently compensated over time, in patients as well as in animals following stroke injury or surgical ablation. It is thus interesting to analyze whether plastic adaptive changes in the striatum might mediate recovery from the motor symptoms resulting from cerebellar damage. To this aim, an animal model of hemicerebellectomy (HCb) was used to assess its time-related influence on morphological pattern of GABAergic striatal interneurons containing the Calcium-binding protein Parvalbumin (PV). In particular, neuronal density and dendritic length of PV-immunopositive interneurons were evaluated 15 or 30 days after the surgery in HCbed and Sham-operated rats. Neuronal density of PV-immunopositive striatal interneurons was not affected by HCb neither 15 nor 30 days after surgery. Conversely, dendritic length was strongly influenced by the cerebellar lesion, as the time went by. In fact, 15 days after HCb, striatal interneurons exhibited shorter dendrites than those of Sham animals. This feature was more marked following 30 days after HCb. These findings indicate that the plastic response of the GABA-ergic PV-immunopositive striatal interneurons might modify their inhibitor role in the presence of a cerebellar damage and provide evidence of the interconnections between cerebellum and striatum. The contribution in recovery from motor symptoms of cerebellar origin can be postulated. Conference: 41st European Brain and Behaviour Society Meeting, Rhodes Island, Greece, 13 Sep - 18 Sep, 2009. Presentation Type: Poster Presentation Topic: Poster presentations Citation: De-Bartolo P, Gelfo F, De-Giorgio A, Granato A and Petrosini L (2009). A cerebellar damage influences the morphological pattern of striatal interneurons. Conference Abstract: 41st European Brain and Behaviour Society Meeting. doi: 10.3389/conf.neuro.08.2009.09.129 Copyright: The abstracts in this collection have not been subject to any Frontiers peer review or checks, and are not endorsed by Frontiers. They are made available through the Frontiers publishing platform as a service to conference organizers and presenters. The copyright in the individual abstracts is owned by the author of each abstract or his/her employer unless otherwise stated. Each abstract, as well as the collection of abstracts, are published under a Creative Commons CC-BY 4.0 (attribution) licence (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) and may thus be reproduced, translated, adapted and be the subject of derivative works provided the authors and Frontiers are attributed. For Frontiers’ terms and conditions please see https://www.frontiersin.org/legal/terms-and-conditions. Received: 09 Jun 2009; Published Online: 09 Jun 2009. * Correspondence: Paola De-Bartolo, University of Rome “Sapienza”, Department of Psychology, Rome, Italy, paola.debartolo@yahoo.it Login Required This action requires you to be registered with Frontiers and logged in. To register or login click here. Abstract Info Abstract The Authors in Frontiers Paola De-Bartolo Francesca Gelfo Andrea De-Giorgio Alberto Granato Laura Petrosini Google Paola De-Bartolo Francesca Gelfo Andrea De-Giorgio Alberto Granato Laura Petrosini Google Scholar Paola De-Bartolo Francesca Gelfo Andrea De-Giorgio Alberto Granato Laura Petrosini PubMed Paola De-Bartolo Francesca Gelfo Andrea De-Giorgio Alberto Granato Laura Petrosini Related Article in Frontiers Google Scholar PubMed Abstract Close Back to top Javascript is disabled. Please enable Javascript in your browser settings in order to see all the content on this page.