The effect of pre- and postnatal undernutrition on the development of the rat cerebellar cortex. I. Morphological observations.

A morphologic study of the postnatal development of cerebellum in normal and pre- and postnatally undernourished rats was initiated in order to evaluate the effect of undernutrition. Defined areas of the cerebellar hemisphere were studied light-microscopically. Parallel to this study a histochemical investigation was performed on the same cerebellar areas (see part II). It was found that pre- and postnatal undernutrition causes a retarded outgrowth of the apical dendritic tree of the Purkinje cells. Furthermore, undernourished rats displayed a delayed persistence of the external granular layer and a retarded differentiation and migration of presumed basket, stellate and internal granular cells which is in accordance with previous studies on cerebellar development in experimental undernutrition.