Embryonic cerebellum transplanted to adult Purkinje cell degenerate mice was assessed for integration and Purkinje cell migration by using the antigenic markers Thy-1 and Leu-4. It was found that the grafted cells migrated into the host's molecular layer, but there was no evidence for specific migration of Purkinje cells. Furthermore, grafted cells were found to form normal cerebellar cyto-arch...

The brain's control of movement is thought to involve coordinated activity between cerebellar Purkinje cells. The results reported here demonstrate that somatic Ca2+ imaging is a faithful reporter of Na+-dependent "simple spike" pauses and enables us to optically record changes in firing rates in populations of Purkinje cells in brain slices and in vivo. This simultaneous calcium imaging of pop...

Secretin was the first hormone discovered in human history, and yet, its function as a neuropeptide has been overlooked in the past. The recent discovery of the potential use of secretin in treating autistic patients, together with the conflicting reports on its effectiveness, urges an in-depth investigation of this issue. We show here that in the rat cerebellar cortex, mRNAs encoding secretin ...

Neurotrophins regulate diverse aspects of neuronal development and plasticity, but their precise in vivo functions during neural circuit assembly in the central brain remain unclear. We show that the neurotrophin receptor tropomyosin-related kinase C (TrkC) is required for dendritic growth and branching of mouse cerebellar Purkinje cells. Sparse TrkC knockout reduced dendrite complexity, but gl...

In organotypic cultures, mouse Purkinje cells regenerate their axons from embryonic day 18 (E18) to postnatal day 0 (P0), die of apoptosis between P1 and P7, and survive but do not regenerate at P10. This particular behavior of Purkinje cells did not allow us to find out when the developmental switch between regeneration and lack of regeneration occurs. This work was undertaken to suppress Purk...

Studies of Purkinje cell dendritic spine proliferation after transplantation of cytosine arabinoside (Ara C) treated organotypic cerebellar cultures with glia and granule cells, either separately and in combination, were reviewed. Exposure of cerebellar explants to Ara C for the first 5 days in vitro results in the destruction of granule cells, the only excitatory cortical neurons, and oligoden...

Cerebellar Purkinje cells are generated in the ventricular zone, migrate outward, and finally form a monolayer in the cortex. In reeler mice, however, most Purkinje cells cluster abnormally in subcortical areas. Reelin, the candidate reeler gene product recognized by the CR-50 monoclonal antibody, is concentrated in a cortical zone along which Purkinje cells are aligned linearly, implying that ...

During ischemia, lidocaine or quinidine may prevent arrhythmias by blocking conduction without suppressing abnormal automaticity. The purpose of this study was to determine whether lidocaine or quinidine (5 micrograms/ml) produced Purkinje fiber-papillary muscle block during superfusion in vitro with an altered Tyrode's solution containing some components of ischemia: 6 mM potassium, PO2 less t...

This study was conducted on the atrioventricular node (AVN) and atrioventricular bundle (AVB) of fivefour-month-old ovine fetuses. The histological structure of these components was studied by routinehistological techniques and use of specific staining methods. The AVN was caudally located adjacent to theroot of the aorta. It was almost spherical in shape and consisted of twisty cells. The node...

Mesenchymal stem cells have been proven to be potentially effective in the treatment of a large variety of diseases, including neurodegenerative disorders. Of these, cerebellar ataxia is a group of disorders characterized by the degeneration of the cerebellum, particularly the Purkinje cells, responsible for motor coordination and control of the motor functions. To analyze the possibility of us...