LM AND EM MORPHOLOGY OF SACRAL PARASYMPATHETIC NEURONS

副交感神经系统起主要控制作用 关于排泄物和性反应。了解 这些反射的形态和神经生理学基础是 必需治疗的不仅是大量的脊椎 脐带损伤患者，其中许多人可能死于并发症 与他们的排尿反射缺乏控制有关，但 还有患有大小便失禁问题的老年人。 这里提出的研究是为了研究藻类的形态 膀胱和结肠节前神经元及相关中间神经元 在脊髓的骶骨副交感神经核内。这些 神经元将被神经生理学鉴定，注射 用HRP细胞内注射，然后在两个 光镜(LM)和电子显微镜(EM)水平。 它们的形态将被比较并与它们的 在排泄反射中扮演不同的角色。这项技术提供了 与目前的方法相比有五个优点：第一，细胞内 方法更完整地填充和显露神经突起 HRP法优于逆行HRP法。其次，他们将允许 单个神经元的检查，而逆行方法 仅生成多个标签。第三，它们提供了一个积极的 高尔基方法所不能识别的神经元。第四, 细胞内方法将使这些神经元的研究成为可能， 尤其是它们的远端树突和突触终末， EM水平，而逆行方法不会。最后，这一点 这种方法提供的优势是特定的神经生理学 特征可能与它们的形态有关。这个 获得的基本信息将直接与进一步 了解正常功能，并对后续的 试图解开由以下原因导致的功能变化 脊髓损伤。

The parasympathetic nervous system exerts the major control over the excretory and sexual reflexes. Understanding the morphological and neurophysiological bases of these reflexes is essential to the treatment of not only the great number of spinal cord injured patients, many of whom may die from complications related to the lack of control over their micturition reflexes, but also of aged people suffering problems of incontinence. The research proposed here is designed to study the morphology of bladder and colon preganglionic neurons and related interneurons in the sacral parasympathetic nucleus in the spinal cord. These neurons will be identified neurophysiologically, injected intracellularly with HRP, and will then be examined at both the light microscopic (LM) and the electron microscopic (EM) levels. Their morphologies will be compared and correlated with their different roles in the excretory reflexes. This technique offers five advantages over present methods: First, intracellular methods fill and reveal more completely the neurites of a nerve cell than retrograde HRP methods. Second, they will permit an examination of individual neurons whereas the retrograde methods produce only multiple labeling. Third, they provide a positive identification of the neurons which Golgi methods do not. Fourth, intracellular methods will permit study of these neurons, particularly of their distal dendrites and synaptic terminals, at the EM level, whereas retrograde methods will not. Finally, this method offers the advantage that specific neurophysiological characteristics may be associated with their morphology. The basic information obtained will be directly relevant to further understanding of normal function and essential to any subsequent attempt at unraveling the alterations in function that result from spinal cord injury.