URETERIC VASCULAR AND MUSCLE COAT INNERVATION IN RAT - QUANTITATIVE ULTRASTRUCTURAL-STUDY

  • 1 January 1976
    • journal article
    • research article
    • Vol. 14  (1) , 38-43
Abstract
The application of a quantitative ultrastructural approach to the study of the innervation of the smooth muscle in the wall of the ureter of the rat revealed major differences in the structure of the nerves in the muscle coat and in the walls of the arterioles. The high density of adrenergic terminals in the periarteriolar nerves was consistent with the distribution of many of the postganglionic sympathetic axons that run in the ureteric nerves to blood vessels and the low density of both adrenergic and cholinergic terminals in the intramuscular nerves implied that the autonomic nervous system plays only a secondary role in controlling the activity of the muscle. The mean size of the intramuscular nerves corresponded to that of the nerves in the submucosa, and terminals of the kind that occur in the submucosal nerves are numerous. The function of axons with such terminals and their possible involvement in the transmission to the CNS of pain impulses was discussed.

This publication has 1 reference indexed in Scilit: