How can the use of backslashes in PHP code impact the occurrence of parse errors?

When using backslashes in PHP code, it is important to escape them properly to avoid parse errors. This is because backslashes are used as escape characters in PHP, meaning they can change the interpretation of the following character. To prevent parse errors, backslashes should be doubled up to escape them properly.

// Incorrect usage of backslashes causing parse error
$unescaped_string = "This is a backslash: \";
```

```php
// Correctly escaping backslashes to prevent parse error
$escaped_string = "This is a backslash: \\";
echo $escaped_string;