Table 5.

Patterned climbing fiber pathological features in degenerative movement disorders

	Control	Parkinson’s disease	Essential tremor	Multiple system atrophy	Spinocerebellar ataxia type 1
Climbing fiber synaptic density	−	−	↓	↓↓	↓↓
Percentage of climbing fibers extending into outer 20 % of the molecular layer	−	↑	↑	↓	↓
Climbing fiber length in the outer 20 % of the molecular layer	−	↑	↑↑	↓	↓
Number of climbing fiber synapses in the outer 20 % of the molecular layer	−	↑	↑↑	↓	↓
Number of climbing fiber branches in the outer 20 % of the molecular layer	−	↑	↑↑	↓	−
Percentage of climbing fiber synapses on the thin Purkinje cell dendritic branchlets	−	↑	↑↑	N/A	N/A
Climbing fiber collaterals	−	−	−	↑	−
Purkinje cell counts	−	−	↓	↓↓	↓↓
Torpedo counts	−	↑	↑	↑↑	↑↑

N/A not available due to the fragmentation of Purkinje cell dendrites of multiple system atrophy cases and spinocerebellar ataxia type 1 case