Summary
The innervation of the salivary gland of the cockroach Nauphoeta cinerea (Olivier) has been investigated with the use of light and scanning electron microscopy. Light microscopy of methylene blue stained glands reveals the presence of a dual innervation arising from the ventral nerve cord and the stomodeal nervous system; the principal innervation is that from the ventral nerve cord which passes to the gland via the reservoir ducts. Branches of these nerves form a plexus on the acinar surface, the axons of which exhibit swelling at irregular intervals. The presence of this surface plexus and the axonal swellings was confirmed by scanning electron microscopy both in normal glands and in those in which the basal lamina had been removed by means of an HCl-collagenase digestion method. No acinar plexus was seen to be formed by branches of the stomatogastric nerve that were associated with the gland. However, other branches of this nerve were clearly connected with a complex network of multipolar neurones on the surfaces of the anterior regions of both salivary reservoirs.
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I am grateful to Mrs. L. Lamont for considerable assistance and the Institute of Terrestial Ecology for the use of their scanning electron microscope. I wish to thank Drs. Brown, House and Smith for their constructive criticism of the manuscript, and the Wellcome Research Unit for animal accommodation. I also acknowledge, with pleasure, the assistance of Mr. C.M. Warwick in the preparation of figures and Mr. D.J. Maxwell for access to unpublished results. F.B-R. was supported by a James Tindal Scholarship in the Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, University of Edinburgh
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Bowser-Riley, F. The salivary glands of the cockroach Nauphoeta cinerea (Olivier). Cell Tissue Res. 187, 525–534 (1978). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00229617
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00229617