Electrophysiological evidence for axonal sprouting of cerebellothalamic neurons in kittens after neonatal hemicerebellectomy

Summary

Changes in cerebello-cerebral responses after hemicerebellectomy were investigated in 19 kittens by laminar field potential analysis in the cerebral cortex. In all of 11 kittens operated on before 11 days of age and kept for more than 16 days after surgery, marked cerebello-cerebral responses were evoked not only contralaterally as in intact animals but also ipsilaterally. In none of 16 intact kittens ranging in age from 2 to 14 days was there a detectable response in the cerebral cortex to stimulation of the ipsilateral cerebellar nucleus.

Pathways responsible for the ipsilateral cerebello-cerebral responses were investigated by destruction of the thalamic VL nucleus and by unitary recordings from cerebellar nuclear neurons with antidromic activation on stimulation of the thalamus. From the latter investigation, a remarkable increase in the number of neurons with bilateral projections upon the thalamus was seen in the surgically treated kittens. Stimulation of the VL thalamic nucleus contralateral to the remaining hemicerebellum induced a marked response in the frontal cortex not only ipsilaterally as in intact animals but also contralaterally. The latter response was considered to be mediated by an axon reflex of the bilateral projection neurons. Destruction of that VL nucleus abolished the contralateral cerebello-cerebral response whereas the ipsilateral cerebello-cerebral response remained unchanged.

It is concluded, that in kittens, hemicerebellectomized in the early postnatal period, nuclear neurons in the remaining cerebellum sprout axon collaterals growing into the thalamus ipsilateral to the spared hemicerebellum and that these sprouting axon collaterals make synapses on the thalamic neurons projecting upon the cerebral cortex.