Formation de novo and development of neuromuscular junctions in vitro

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Abstract
The purpose of this study has been to examine, by means of isolation in vitro, the conditions under which neuromyal junctions develop. More than a hundred years ago Doyère (1840) observed in the water-bear Milnesium tardigradum that the nerve fibers terminate in characteristic eminences of muscle fibers. This observation, made on an arthropod, stimulated research into the connexion between muscle and nerve fiber, and resulted in abandonment of the older concept that motor nerves after having formed loops around the muscles return to the central nervous system as sensory pathways. Although investigations during the intervening century have identified and characterized morphologically the ‘motor end plate’ (as it was designated by Krause, 1863), and have revealed microscopic and fine-structural differences between types of motor endings, there is as yet no general agreement on the respective roles played by nerve, muscle and ambient influences in the development of the neuromuscular junction.