REVIEW article
Front. Physiol.
Sec. Integrative Physiology
Volume 16 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fphys.2025.1671271
This article is part of the Research Topic74th Annual Meeting of the Italian Society of Physiology: Breakthroughs and Key DiscoveriesView all 10 articles
The spiny relationship between parallel fibers, climbing fibers, and Purkinje cells
Provisionally accepted
- 1Department of Brain and Behavioral Sciences, University of Pavia, Pavia, Italy
- 2Universita degli Studi del Molise, Campobasso, Italy
- 3Digital Neuroscience Center, IRCCS Mondino Foundation, Pavia, Italy
Select one of your emails
You have multiple emails registered with Frontiers:
Notify me on publication
Please enter your email address:
If you already have an account, please login
You don't have a Frontiers account ? You can register here
Cerebellar Purkinje cells are one of the most complex neurons in the central nervous system and are well known for their extensive dendritic tree dotted by dendritic spines. PC spines receive excitatory synapses from parallel and climbing fibers and, although their morphological properties are comparable to those of other neuronal types, they show distinct extracellular and intracellular regulatory properties. Purkinje cell spine protrusion and helical patterning do not require nearby axons, as e.g., in pyramidal cells. Instead, Purkinje cell spines require structural proteins located on parallel and climbing fibers for their stabilisation and maintenance. The total spine number is influenced by scaffold proteins and eventually reflects the total dendritic length and local spine density. Purkinje cell spines were supposed to range up to over 105 in rodents and 106 in humans, but recent experimental data show that spines are less numerous than initially thought. Instead, they are endowed with mechanisms designed to improve their efficiency and differentiation. Some spines are double-headed, thereby enhancing Purkinje cell responses when the companion parallel fibre is stimulated. Other spines are single-headed and presumably endowed with slow neurotransmission mechanisms. Latest experimental data showed that glial cells modulate spines activity after a task or learning. Eventually, these multiple mechanisms can make each spine crucial in its own way for synaptic pattern recognition. In this review, we present the most recent advancements on Purkinje cell spines spanning their biochemical, structural, and functional properties, both in mice and humans, and propose a recalculation of the effective complement of spines and their activation by parallel fibers.
Keywords: Purkinje cell, Cerebellum, Spines, Synapses, History
Received: 22 Jul 2025; Accepted: 19 Sep 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Masoli, Rizza, Moccia and D‘Angelo. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence:
Stefano Masoli, stefano.masoli@unipv.it
Egidio D‘Angelo, dangelo@unipv.it
Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.