Reticulocerebellar projections to the anterior and posterior lobes of the rat cerebellum

By using retrograde double-labeling techniques, we analyzed the topography of projections from the lateral reticular nucleus (LRN) to the anterior and posterior lobes of the cerebellum, with the aim to investigate whether LRN projections to the two lobes come from different neurons or from branching axons of the same cells. We observed that about 4/5 of afferents the cerebellar cortex come from the ipsilateral LRN and about 1/5 from the contralateral nucleus. Furthermore, magnocellular division of LRN projects mainly to the anterior lobe, whereas parvicellular part primarily to the posterior lobe. The double-labelled cells were very numerous (about 1/3) and were located throughout the LRN, with the higher incidence in the magnocellular division and the lower in the subtrigeminal part.