FIGURE 6.

Dendritic spines of Purkinje neurons in BTBR mice were significantly increased with disturbed maturation at postnatal day 14. (A,B) Golgi-stained Purkinje neurons in cerebella of WT and BTBR mice. Dendritic branches in white panels are magnified in (A’,B’) and furtherly magnified in (A’₁,A’₂,B’₁,B’₂) showing increased and immature dendritic spines in BTBR mice. Yellow, blue, and red arrowheads indicate thin, stubby and mushroom spine types respectively. (C) Quantification of Purkinje neuron dendritic profile area in each group. (Student’s t-test; n = 4,4). (D) Quantification of the length of the Purkinje neuron’s primary dendrite in each group (Student’s t-test; n = 4,4). (E) Schema graph showing the method of Sholl analysis. Purkinje neuron’s branches are incised by concentric circles with 5.5 μm radius steps from the soma. (F) Quantification of intersections of branches and circles at different radius showing similar level of dendrite arborization in WT and BTBR mice (Two-way repeated measure test; n = 4, 4 mice). (G) Schema graph illustrating the spine maturity progresses (up to down) from long thin structure (yellow) to transitional stubby (blue) and mushroom mature form (red). (H) Quantification of dendritic spines of Purkinje neurons per 10 μm branch showing increased spine density in BTBR mice (Student’s t-test; n = 4,4). (I) Quantification of the percentage of each spine type showing immature development trend in BTBR mice (Student’s t-test; n = 4,4). All data are displayed as mean ± SD. *P < 0.05, **P < 0.01, ***P < 0.001. Scale bar: (A,B) 25 μm; (A’,B’) 5μm; (A’₁,A’₂,B’₁,B’₂) 2 μm.