Summary
The innervation of the carotid body of adult rats was studied by means of serial ultrathin sections. A single branching nerve fiber innervates 12 chief cells through several kinds of terminals (vesicle-containing, mitochondrial sack, and calyx-type) in en-passant and bouton forms. Two types of synaptic contacts between nerve terminals and chief cells are found; type 1 in which chief cells are postsynaptic, and type 2 in which chief cells are presynaptic. Since a single nerve fiber (possibly from the glossopharyngeal nerve) forms both types of synapses with type 2 predominating, the nerve fiber is considered basically sensory or centripetal. In addition to their synaptic connections with sensory nerve fibers, chief cells located in the periphery of this organ are in synaptic relation with dendrites of a few ganglion cells adjacent to these cells. Here the chief cells are presynaptic. A few synaptic contacts between two adjacent chief cells are seen, and so are direct contacts between chief cells and preganglionic efferent nerve fibers terminating on ganglion cells.
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The author wishes to thank Dr. L.J. Stensaas for his generous support and encouragement. He is also grateful to Drs. C. Eyzaguirre and T.Y. Yamamoto for their helpful criticism in the preparation of this manuscript. This work was supported by NIH grants NS 05666 and NS 07938. A portion of it was presented in abstract form at the 88th meeting of the American Association of Anatomists (Anat. Rec., 181: 399)
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Kondo, H. Innervation of the carotid body of the adult rat. Cell Tissue Res. 173, 1–15 (1976). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00219262
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00219262