The position and number of preganglionic somata innervating the insulin-secreting beta-cells of the endocrine pancreas were investigated in Wistar rats. This question was approached by comparing the innervation of the pancreas of normal rats with the innervation of the pancreas in alloxan-induced diabetic animals. The presumption was made that alloxan treatment destroys the beta-cells of the is...

Motor neurons are thought to critically regulate the survival of a subset of developing muscle fibers. In muscles that develop in the absence of innervation, primary muscle fibers appear to form in normal numbers, but their long-term survival is thought to require innervation-induced suprathreshold activity. Here I examine interactions between motor neurons and muscle fibers in newborn rats. I ...

Brain opioid innervation is involved in many pathophysiological processes related to drug addiction. The main idea of the present review is that μ-/δ-opioid innervation is an intrinsic component of the motor/approach behavior network, which is activated synergetically with dopaminergic mesocorticolimbic network. Contribution of opioid innervation to the motor/approach behavior processing includ...

Endometriosis is an enigmatic painful disorder whose pain symptoms remain difficult to alleviate in large part because the disorder is defined by extrauteral endometrial growths whose contribution to pain is poorly understood. A rat model (ENDO) involves autotransplanting on abdominal arteries uterine segments that grow into vascularized cysts that become innervated with sensory and sympathetic...

BACKGROUND Fabry Disease (FD) is characterized by globotriaosylceramide-3 (Gb3) accumulation in several tissues and a small fibre neuropathy (SFN), however the underlying mechanisms are poorly known. This study aimed to: 1) ascertain the presence of Gb3 deposits in skin samples, by an immunofluorescence method collected from FD patients with classical GLA mutations or late-onset FD variants or ...

OBJECTIVES The plantaris tendon is increasingly recognised as an important factor in midportion Achilles tendinopathy. Its innervation pattern is completely unknown. METHODS Plantaris tendons (n=56) and associated peritendinous tissue from 46 patients with midportion Achilles tendinopathy and where the plantaris tendon was closely related to the Achilles tendon were evaluated. Morphological e...

Three models of altered autonomic innervation of the chick heart have been developed in the last few years. These include sympathetically aneural heart, parasympathetically aneural heart, and heart with cholinergic innervation reconstituted from the nodose placodes. The neural status of these hearts has been assessed by a variety of morphological and biochemical methods, but the functional stat...

The primary motor cortex (M1) is involved in fine voluntary movements control. Previous studies have shown the existence of a dopamine (DA) innervation in M1 of rats and monkeys that could directly modulate M1 neuronal activity. However, none of these studies have described the precise distribution of DA terminals within M1 functional region nor have quantified the density of this innervation. ...

Efferent innervation of the cochlea undergoes extensive modification early in development, but it is unclear if efferent synapses are modified by age, hearing loss, or both. Structural alterations in the cochlea affecting information transfer from the auditory periphery to the brain may contribute to age-related hearing deficits. We investigated changes to efferent innervation in the vicinity o...

Immune tissues are known to be innervated by the sympathetic nervous system, but little is known of what directs the innervation to specific tissue compartments. This report examines the sympathetic innervation of immune tissues in transgenic mice that overexpress nerve growth factor (NGF) in skin and other epithelial structures. NGF transgenic mice exhibited dramatic hyperinnervation in the sp...