A biplanar slice preparation for studying cerebellar synaptic transmission

Unlike certain other brain areas, notably the hippocampal formation, synaptic transmission in the cerebellum, a 3-dimensional anatomical structure, is not ideally studied in a 2-dimensional slice preparation, We describe a method for cutting a cerebellar slice that incorporates two planes of section: one sagittal (in the plane of the Purkinje cell dendrites and of afferent and efferent fibres running in the white matter), and the other in the plane of the parallel fibres (granule cell axons). Details are given of how neurotransmission in the parallel fibre-to-Purkinje cell pathway and in the messy fibre-to-granule cell pathway can be studied by applying a specially designed grease-gap recording technique to the biplanar slice. We further demonstrate the utility of the slice for intracellular recording.