Purkinje cell

Purkinje cell
Drawing of pigeon Purkinje cells (A) by Santiago Ramon y Cajal
Details
Location	Cerebellum
Morphology	flat dendritic arbor
Function	inhibitory projection neuron
Neurotransmitter	GABA
Presynaptic connections	Parallel fibers and Climbing fibers
Postsynaptic connections	Cerebellar deep nuclei
Identifiers
NeuroLex ID	Purkinje Cell
TA	A14.1.07.404
FMA	83896
Anatomical terminology []

Purkinje cells, or Purkinje neurons (/pərˈkɪndʒiː/ pər-KIN-jee), are a class of GABAergic neurons located in the cerebellum. They are named after their discoverer, Czech anatomist Jan Evangelista Purkyně (Czech: [ˈpurkɪɲɛ]).

These cells are some of the largest neurons in the human brain (Betz cells being the largest), with an intricately elaborate dendritic arbor, characterized by a large number of dendritic spines. Purkinje cells are found within the Purkinje layer in the cerebellum. Purkinje cells are aligned like dominos stacked one in front of the other. Their large dendritic arbors form nearly two-dimensional layers through which parallel fibers from the deeper-layers pass. These parallel fibers make relatively weaker excitatory (glutamatergic) synapses to spines in the Purkinje cell dendrite, whereas climbing fibers originating from the inferior olivary nucleus in the medulla provide very powerful excitatory input to the proximal dendrites and cell soma. Parallel fibers pass orthogonally through the Purkinje neuron's dendritic arbor, with up to 200,000 parallel fibers forming a Granule-cell-Purkinje-cell synapse with a single Purkinje cell. Each Purkinje cell receives ca 500 climbing fiber synapses, all originating from a single climbing fiber. Both basket and stellate cells (found in the cerebellar molecular layer) provide inhibitory (GABAergic) input to the Purkinje cell, with basket cells synapsing on the Purkinje cell axon initial segment and stellate cells onto the dendrites.