Glutamate cerebellar nuclei

Fig. 5. Drawing of the brainstem depicting neurons and pathways likely to use glutamate as a neurotransmitter. 1 = primary afferent inputs to the dorsal column nuclei (a), the solitary tract nucleus (b), and the cochlear nucleus (c) 2 = granule cell/parallel fibers in the dorsal cochlear nucleus 3 = calyces of Held in the medial nucleus of the trapezoid body 4 = cochlear nucleus inputs to the lateral superior olive 5 = input to the oculomotor nucleus from the ventral lateral vestibular nucleus 6 = input to the oculomotor nucleus from the abducens nucleus 7 = corticocollieular inputs 8 = spinal input to the periaqueductal gray 9 = inputs to the red nucleus and pontine nuclei from the cerebellar nuclei. For further details, see Section 3.3.

Fig. 129. Schematic drawing of the distribution of motilin-immunoreactive (M-i) Purkinje cells (open triangles) and glutamic acid decarboxylase-immunoreactive (GAD-i) Purkinje cells (filled circles) in a coronal section of rat cerebellum. M-i cells and GAD-i cells are both more concentrated in the flocculus and the paraflocculus than elsewhere. Both cell types occur in the vermis and participate in the formation of the sagittal microzones (arrows). M-i terminal axon projections in the deep cerebellar nuclei are heaviest in the dentate (D left side) and GAD-i projections are heaviest in the lateral vestibular nucleus (LV right side). 1 = interposed nucleus F = fastigial nucleus. Chan-Palay et al. (1981).

Aspartate is closely related metabolically and chemically to glutamate. In many respects it is difficult to differentiate between aspartate and glutamate as neurotransmitter candidates (Fonnum, 1984). There are, however, some fibers and terminals in which aspartate is regarded as a stronger transmitter candidate than glutamate. These include the cerebellar climbing fibers (Wiklund et al., 1982), hippocampal commissural fibers (Nadler et al., 1978), olfactory tract (Collins and Probett, 1981), cochlear nucleus afferents (Wenthold, 1979), and spinal cord intemeurons (Davidoff et al., 1967)... 

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