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Aging of cerebellar Purkinje cells

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Abstract

Cerebellar Purkinje cells (PCs), the sole output neurons in the cerebellar cortex, play an important role in the cerebellar circuit. PCs appear to be rather sensitive to aging, exhibiting significant changes in both morphology and function during senescence. This article reviews such changes during the normal aging process, including a decrease in the quantity of cells, atrophy in the soma, retraction in the dendritic arborizations, degeneration in the subcellular organelles, a decline in synapse density, disorder in the neurotransmitter system, and alterations in electrophysiological properties. Although these deteriorative changes occur during aging, compensatory mechanisms exist to counteract the impairments in the aging PCs. The possible neural mechanisms underlying these changes and potential preventive treatments are discussed.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by grants from the Natural Science Foundation of Anhui Provincial Education Bureau (No. KJ2007B330ZC) and the Key Natural Science Foundation of Anhui Provincial Education Bureau (No. KJ2009A167).

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  1. Department of Biological Science and Technology/State Key Laboratory of Pharmaceutical Biotechnology, School of Life Sciences, Nanjing University, Nanjing, 210093, China

    Changzheng Zhang

  2. School of Life Sciences, Anqing Teachers College, Anqing, 246011, People’s Republic of China

    Changzheng Zhang & Qingfeng Zhu

  3. School of Life Sciences, Anhui Normal University, Wuhu, 241000, People’s Republic of China

    Tianmiao Hua

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Zhang, C., Zhu, Q. & Hua, T. Aging of cerebellar Purkinje cells. Cell Tissue Res 341, 341–347 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00441-010-1016-2

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