Summary
The vegetative, motor, and sensitive innervation of the oesophagus of rabbit was studied by means of several neurohistological techniques. A great deal of vegetative and somatic nervous formations were found and described within the various segments of the organ; namely at level of the cervical, thoracic, prediaphragmatic, and abdominal oesophageal tracts. In particular, isolated and grouped ganglion cells, interstitial and associative neurons, free nervous terminations, and an amyelinated subepithelial network sending delicate fibrils to the basal layers of the impending epithelium were described. The vegetative nervous component is organized into an extramural oesophageal plexus, and into an intramural one. The numerous motor endplates lying on the striated muscle fibres show different forms and several other structural pecularities. The sensitive terminations are represented by simple and non-capsulated Ruffini's corpuscles contained within the submucous connective tissue. The possible functional correlations of these morphological findings are discussed.
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This study was in part supported by a grant from the Italian C. N. R.
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Cecio, A., Califano, G. Neurohistological observations on the oesophageal innervation of rabbit. Z. Zellforsch. 83, 30–39 (1967). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00334736
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00334736