Patterns of neuronal differentiation in developing cultures of neonatal mouse cerebellum: a living and silver impregnation study.

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AbstractOrganotypic explants of neonatal mouse cerebellum were cultured for periods up to 56 days in vitro. Living cultures were compared to those fixed and stained by the Holmes' reduced silver nitrate method. The explants consist of a heterologous neuronal population comparable to that found in situ. Since the differentiation of the cerebellum is actively in progress during the neonatal and postnatal periods, cultures derived from such tissue demonstrate the developmental phases that are present at the time of explantation.The in vitro. maintenance of neonatal mouse cerebellum allows the expression of those aspects of neuronal development which are intrinsic to the cell proper and primarily concerned with type‐specific differentiation, e.g., neurofibrillary development; axonal growth; myelination; and the acquiring of basic dendritic patterns. The secondary aspects of differentiation, which determine the adult state and which are characterized primarily by the increasing complexity of dendritic formation and of synaptic interactions, occur to a much lesser extent in vitro.The importance of recognizing transitional forms as normal and not peculiar to the in vitro situation is emphasized.