Abstract
In a recent report we demonstrated that stimulation of cerebellar mossy fibers synchronously activates Purkinje cells that are located directly above the site of stimulation. We found that the activated Purkinje cells are arranged in a radial patch on the cerebellar surface and that this organization is independent of the integrity of the inhibitory system. This arrangement of activity is counterintuitive. The anatomical structure with the extensive parallel fiber system implies that mossy fiber stimulation will activate Purkinje cells along a beam of parallel fibers. In this short review we highlight this discrepancy between anatomical structure and functional dynamics and suggest a plausible underlying mechanism.
Highlights
Edited by: Ranulfo Romo, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Mexico Reviewed by: Chris de Zeeuw, Department of Neuroscience, Erasmus Medical Center, Rotterdam, The Netherlands Henry Markram, Brain Mind Institute, Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, Switzerland * Correspondence: Introduction The cerebellum, with its extraordinarily stereotyped morphology, has been hailed as the epitome for morphology based neuronal circuit analysis
Molecular layer interneurons, and climbing fibers are all oriented in parasagittal planes, while the parallel fibers are oriented in the medio-lateral axis
The cerebellar cortex is divided into three layers: the superficial molecular layer, the deep granule cell layer and between them a single cell deep Purkinje cell layer (Figure 1)
Summary
Granule cell axons ascend through the cerebellar cortex and bifurcate to form the parallel fiber system. It is the remarkable conserved orthogonal arrangement of the parasagittal Purkinje cell dendrites and the coronal parallel fibers that prompted cytoarchitecture-based theories on the function of the cerebellar cortex.
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