EXPERIMENTAL NEUROLOGY 56, 298-311 (1977) Malnutrition-Induced Alterations of Developing Purkinje Cells W. SUE T. GRIFFIN, DONALD J. WOODWARD, AND RITA CHANDA 1 The University of Texas Health Scicuce Center at Dallas, Southzwestws Medical School, Department of Cell Biology, 5323 Harrs Hims Boulevard, Dallas, Texas 75235 Received Drccrrzber 16,1976 To test whether or not malnutrition affects postmitotic, but still differenti- ating neurons, the development of Purkinje cell dendrites was studied in Golgi-Cox-stained preparations at 8, 11, 14, and 17 days postnatally. Sig- nificantly more dendritic aberrations involving branching and shape were observed in Purkinje cells from malnourished animals than from well-fed control animals. This work demonstrates that postnatal malnutrition in the rat affects growth of nonmitotic populations of neurons. INTRODUCTION There have been numerous investigations into the effect of postnatal malnutrition on cerebellar development in the rat (2, 4-7, 9, 15, 17). Such work has concentrated mainly on changes in number, composition, and function of granule cells which, due to the vulnerability of the external granular layer, prove to be the major target of this developmental stress. The major change detected in cerebellar structure has been accounted for by decreases in rates of mitosis, i.e., nutritional stress during development resulting in fewer cerebellar granule cells at maturity. On the other hand, changes detected in the sagittal-area1 extent of the molecular layer have suggested that changes might also occur in the nonmitotic cells, the Purkinje cells ( 10). Here, our aim has been to study the dendritic structure of the Purkinje cells, which complete mitosis before birth and hence whose proliferation is Abbreviations : RNA-ribonucleic acid, MAM-methylazoxymethanol. 1 We thank Ms. Debra Bickett for technical assistance. This work was supported in part by National Institutes of Health Grant No. 5 ROl NS13225 and National Institutes of Health Teacher Investigator Award No. 1 Fll N3 11030 to D. J. Wood- ward. W. S. T. Griffin was a trainee under U.S. Public Health Service Grant No. 527.555292. 298 Copyright 0 1977 by Academic Press, Inc. AlI rights of reprtiuction io any form reserved. ISSN 0014-4886