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Development of muscle spindles deprived of fusimotor innervation

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Summary

Muscle spindles of limb muscles were deefferented in neonatal rats by sectioning ventral roots or by removal of the lumbosacral spinal cord.

Ten to 56 days after the operation, muscle spindles were examined in the medial gastrocnemius, extensor digitorum longus and soleus muscles. The differentiation of muscle spindles was not affected by deefferentation. The number of spindles in the investigated muscles was not reduced. Intrafusal fibres increased in number from two at birth to four per spindle on the average, as in normal muscles. The characteristic ultrastructural distinctions of nuclear bag and nuclear chain fibres developed as under normal conditions. However, intrafusal fibres atrophied slowly after fusimotor denervation, their polar zones becoming reduced in diameter by about 25% in comparison with control fibre diameters. Spindle capsules, on the other hand, increased in size and attained diameters comparable with normal spindles, appearing even somewhat distended.

As intrafusal fibres degenerate after complete denervation at birth (Zelená, 1957), but differentiate in the absence of fusimotor innervation, it can be concluded that sensory nerve terminals induce and support their development. It is assumed that the morphogenetic influence of sensory terminals is mediated by release and uptake of a trophic substance at the synaptic junction. The occurrence of light and dense core vesicles in the sensory terminals and of coated invaginations and vesicles at both the axonal and plasma membrane speak in favour of such a possibility.

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  1. Institute of Physiology, Czechoslovak Academy of Sciences, Prague 4, Czechoslovakia

    Jiřina Zelená & T. Soukup

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  1. Jiřina Zelená
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  2. T. Soukup
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The authors wish to thank Mrs. M. Sobotková, Dr. Z. Lišková, Mr. H. Kunz and Ing. M. Doubek for their skillful technical assistance.

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Zelená, J., Soukup, T. Development of muscle spindles deprived of fusimotor innervation. Z.Zellforsch 144, 435–452 (1973). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00307586

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