Towards A Structural Characterization of The Leopard Gecko Cerebellum: Purkinje Cells And Cells of The External Granular Layer
Bibliographic record
Abstract
The cerebellum is a major component of the hindbrain, and plays important roles in motor coordination, posture, and cognitive functions. Although the gross anatomy and histological organization of the cerebellum has been documented across many species, less is known about the contributing cell types, especially among non‐mammals. Here we focus on Purkinje cells (PC) and cells of the External Granular Layer (EGL) in a representative lizard, the leopard gecko ( Eublepharis macularius ). PC serve as the major motor output of the cerebellum. Similar to other vertebrates, gecko PC are large, calbindin‐immunopositive neurons located at the junction between the molecular layer and the granular layer. Golgi‐cox impregnation reveals a dendritic arborization broadly comparable with that of alligators (and distinct from that of mammals). There is typically a single, lengthy primary dendrite that passes towards the molecular layer. This primary dendrite divides into multiple short dendritic branches that conclude in thin spiny branchlets with abundant, closely packed spines. Adult geckos also retain an EGL, a progenitor cell population that characteristically disappears prior to adulthood in mammals. Cells of the gecko EGL are immunopositive for the transcription factor SOX2, a hallmark protein of neural stem/progenitor cells, and the intermediate filament (and radial glia marker) glial fibrillary acid protein, but are immunonegative for NeuN, a marker of mature neurons. Using a bromodeoxyuridine pulse‐chase strategy, we determined that a subset of gecko EGL cells were label retaining after a 140 day chase period. Combined, these data provide important new information about the evolutionary variability of the cerebellum, with implications for functional adaptations in a species capable of tail loss. Support or Funding Information Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council Discovery Grant #400358 (MKV), #436190 (CDCB) and The Canada Foundation for Innovation #25371 (MKV) and #30381 (CDCB) This abstract is from the Experimental Biology 2018 Meeting. There is no full text article associated with this abstract published in The FASEB Journal .
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.002 | 0.000 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.001 | 0.001 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".