The sensory innervation of the parietal peritoneum in the rat

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The distribution of sensory neurons innervating the parietal peritoneum was studied using axonal transport of fluoro-gold. The tracer was injected to various parts of parietal peritoneum and the diaphragm. After ten days of survival period bilateral dorsal root ganglia from C2 to S6, and the nodose ganglia were dissected. The cryostat sections of these ganglia were mounted on glass slides and observed with a fluorescence microscope. In cases where the tracer was placed on the peritoneum covering the abdominal wall, labeled neurons were observed only in the ipsilateral dorsal root ganglia. A small number of neurons in nodose and cervical dorsal root ganglia of both sides were labeled after placing the tracer on the central part of diaphragm. When fluoro-gold was applied to the peripheral part of the diaphragm, nodose ganglion was negative, and dorsal root ganglia from T6 to T12 were positive. These results suggest that most of the parietal peritoneum receives sensory nerves from dorsal root ganglia.The morphology of these sensory nerve fibers supplying the parietal peritoneum was studied by immunohistochemistry using antisera against neuronal marker, PGP9.5. These axons often formed wavy bundles and ran in various directions. These bundles contained many myelinated and unmyelinated axons. We observed single nerve fibers branching from these bundles, running toward the peritoneal cavity. The single myelinate fibers ran with several Schwann cells, escaped from the myelin sheeth at just beneath the surface, devided into a few processes to reach the peritoneal cavity.