Afferent Axon Systems: Fine Structure of Collaterals of Climbing Fibers and Mossy Fibers Ending in the Dentate Nucleus

Abstract

The present series of studies aims at an analysis of synaptic organization in the extracerebellar axonal inputs to the dentate nucleus. Afferent axons to the cerebellum have been the subject of considerable and continued interest to neuroanatomists and physiologists alike, and it is the area of investigation in which they complement each other most intimately. A signal reason for this long-standing interest must be the fact that neurons in numerous locations in brainstem, spinal cord, and cerebral cortex send direct and indirect inputs to the cerebellum. The cerebellum in turn reciprocates in its output projections. The monosynaptic sources of afferent inputs to the dentate nucleus have been mapped by tracing of labeled neurons after small precisely localized injections of horseradish peroxidase (Chap. IX) into that nucleus of rats and rhesus monkeys.