Monoclonal antibodies reveal geometric relationships in the rat cerebellar cortex

In the January 1984 issue of the Journal of Neuroscience Angel de Blas presents a compelling analysis of the cytoarchitecture of the mammalian cerebellar cortex. While the major workers in this field have contributed the substantial groundwork on which this paper rests, de Blas brings to a well-studied brain region a fresh technical approach that emphasizes some potentially important relationships between neuron and glia. Two of the more fascinating questions addressed by this work are: (1) are the Bergmann glia of the cerebellar cortex involved in helping to establish the well known espalier shape of the Purkinje cell dendrite (flattened in the plane transverse to the long axis of the folium) and (2) do the Bergmann glia in any way serve to orient or guide the granule cell axons (i.e. the parallel fibers of the molecular layer) in a direction perpendicular to the plane of the Purkinje cell dendrite.