Regeneration of barosensitivity in the aortic nerve of cats when severed and transposed on various vessels in the neck.

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Abstract
In cats, regeneration of baroreceptors was studied in the aortic nerve after its peripheral end was severed and sutured into an adventitial pouch of the common carotid artery (10 cats) on the wall of the external jugular vein (2 cats) and into a cervical muscle (1 cat). Three week-4 mo. after the initial operation, typical pulse synchronous baroreceptor activity was found in the whole desheathed nerve remnant in 3 of 13 animals. This activity could be abolished by section of vagosympathetic bundle distal to the implantation site. In every cat, including the 1 with the nerve in cervical muscle, bursts of spikes could be repeatedly evoked in the whole nerve upon stroking or distortion of the neuroma formed at the site of implantation. Single barosensitive fibers could be teased from the aortic nerves in 7 of the 10 cats whose nerves were sutured into the arterial wall. Distension sensitive single afferents with predominantly phasic response characteristics were found in the nerves on jugular veins. Transposed aortic nerves are apparently capable of reinnervating the originally severed endings in some cases while forming a mechanosensitive neuroma in every case. When in contact with a vessel wall some truly barosensitive endings can also develop which in most instances have a more phasic than tonic response to pressure changes.