The Basket Cell

Abstract

Compared with the granule cell, the basket cell is quite complicated. It receives synapses from parallel fibers and to a limited extent from climbing fibers, but it devotes its entire axonal output to the Purkinje cells with the possible exception of a few contacts on other basket cells and Golgi cells.Alarge number of widely dispersed parallel fibers converge on its dendrites, but its axon sends divergent impulses to only a small number of Purkinje cells. In a recent study PALKOVITS et al. (1971c) estimated that in the cat the axon of the basket cell makes contact with only 9 Purkinje cells. The number may be somewhat smaller in the rat. The same authors obtained densities of 6577 basket cells per mmmm3 of molecular layer in the cat. About 95% of the basket cells were located in the deeper half of the layer. These values are to be compared with densities of 18695 per mm3 for stellate cells and 18433 for neuroglial cells. These results indicate that basket fibers are much more numerous than had been previously supposed. Unfortunately, equivalent figures for the rat are not available.