Transient ipsilateral innervation of the cerebellum by developing olivocerebellar neurons. A retrograde double-labelling study with fast blue and diamidino yellow

Abstract In neonatal rats the injection of Fast Blue and Diamidino Yellow retrograde fluorescent tracers, each into separate cellebellar hemispheres, reveals the presence of double-labelled neurons positioned bilaterally in the inferior olivary complex during the early postnatal period (postnatal day 0 to postnatal day 5). This suggests that those neurons whose axons are able to take up both tracers project to both hemicerebella during this period of postnatal development. Double-labelled neurons were observed in one-and five-day-old injected postnatal rats, but were absent in older animals (10 and 30 days old). The presence of these neurons coincides with a transient period of poly-innervation of Purkinje cells by climbing fibres. They may thus be participating in transitory interactions preceding the formation of definitive climbing fibre synaptic arrangements in the cerebeller cortex. The technique employed is unable to clearly define the pathway of this transient olivocerebellar projection into the ipsilateral cerebellum; however, in direct evidence—like the topographic distribution of double-labelled neurons relative to tracer injection sites, and the small number of single-labelled neurons within the ipisilateral olivary complex, together with previous data on the axonogenesis of olivary neurons [ Bourrat and Sotelo (1988) Devl Brain Res . 39, 19–37]—suggests that these fibres reach the cerebellum through the contralateral inferior cerebellar peduncle and give rise to collaterals, some of which subsequently decussate again within the cerebellum. These fibres probably represent transient collaterals of the normally contralateral olivocerebellar fibres that cross the cerebellar midline and reach mirror-image loci within the ipsilateral hemicerebellum.