Morphological characteristics of mouse stellate and basket cells and their neuroglial envelope: An electron microscopic study

Abstract

Sampling of stellate cells from the molecular layer of cerebellar cortex at two distinct levels within yielded two populations of cells referred to as stellate and basket cells respectively. The appearance of the soma, the several kinds of dendrites and their accompanying spines can be characterized on the electron microscopic level for each type of cell and correlate well with Golgi impregnation studies.Analytical studies were made to determine the proportion of neural and glial elements in direct apposition to stellate and basket soma and their respective dendrites. On the average the glial covering of a basket or stellate cell was 12–14% of the cell profile, reaching 18.6% for the distal portions of dendrites.A quantitative analysis of the amount of soma and dendritic perimeter in contact with synaptic boutons revealed the percentage of perimeter surface covered by terminal boutons was 15.2% for basket soma, 4.5% for the stellate soma, 21% for basket dendrites and 10.3% for stellate dendrites.An interesting group of cells located in the Purkinje cell layer had the morphological characteristics of basket cells but an unusual synaptic input and an unusually high proportion of glial envelope due to their unique position.This report is an introduction to a comparative analysis of the distribution, and densities of different types of synapses upon basket and stellate cells.