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Organization of spines on the dendrites of purkinje cells

Academic Article
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Overview

authors

  • O'Brien, J.
  • Unwin, Nigel (Peter)

publication date

  • January 2006

journal

  • Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America  Journal

abstract

  • Dendritic spines have been investigated intensively over recent years; however, little is yet known about how they organize on the cell surface to make synaptic contacts with appropriate axons. Here we investigate spine distributions along the distal dendrites of cerebellar Purkinje cells, after biolistic labeling of intact tissue with a lipid-soluble dye. We show that the spines have a preference to form regular linear arrays and to trace short-pitch helical paths. The helical ordering is not determined by external factors that may influence how individual spines develop, because the same periodicities were present in fish and mammalian Purkinje cells, including those of weaver mice, which are depleted of the normal presynaptic partners for the spines. The ordering, therefore, is most likely an inherent property of the dendrite. Image reconstruction of dendrites from the different tissues showed that the helical spine distributions invariably lead to approximately equal sampling of surrounding space by the spineheads. The purpose of this organization may therefore be to maximize the opportunity of different spines to interact with different axons.

subject areas

  • Animals
  • Axons
  • Biolistics
  • Cerebellum
  • Dendrites
  • Dendritic Spines
  • Fishes
  • Image Processing, Computer-Assisted
  • Lipids
  • Mice
  • Mice, Inbred C57BL
  • Mice, Neurologic Mutants
  • Microscopy, Confocal
  • Models, Anatomic
  • Models, Biological
  • Nerve Fibers
  • Neuronal Plasticity
  • Neurons
  • Purkinje Cells
  • Synapses
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Research

keywords

  • biolistic labeling
  • confocal microscopy
  • dendritic spine
  • image reconstruction
  • weaver mouse
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Identity

PubMed Central ID

  • PMC1360541

International Standard Serial Number (ISSN)

  • 0027-8424

Digital Object Identifier (DOI)

  • 10.1073/pnas.0507884103

PubMed ID

  • 16423897
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Additional Document Info

start page

  • 1575

end page

  • 1580

volume

  • 103

issue

  • 5

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