Electron microscopic studies of the innervation of the rat kidney.

Abstract

The innervation of the rat kidney is defined by a system which supplies those arterial blood vessels whose walls contain smooth muscle cells and the juxtaglomerular apparatus. Vessels containing pericytes, or those vessels composed of an endothelium only, as well as the tubules of both the cortex and medulla, are not innervated. Furthermore, ganglion cells do not occur in the rat kidney. The nervous apparatus of the rat kidney consists of peripheral vegetative nerves, ensheathed by a perineurium, with 2–4 myelinated fibers running in the paravasal tissue of the interlobar and arcuate arteries, and of nerve bundles without a perineurial sheath in the paravasal tissue of the arcuate and interlobular arteries. Non-myelinated fibers and free axons occur in the immediate vicinity of the great arteries (interlobar, arcuate, and interlobular) and the vasa afferentia. Nerve fibers and free axons are also seen in the vicinity of only the proximal parts of those vasa efferentia which supply the cortical capillary plexus. The arteriolae rectae of the medulla, and their vasa efferentia, from which they arise, are innervated by non-myelinated fibers and free axons which accompany these arterial vessels only to the boundary of the outer and inner stripe of the outer zone of the medulla. The functional innervation of those vessels with smooth muscle cells results from neuro-effector zones which predominantly show agranular vesicles. These structures were never seen between the smooth muscle cells within the media; the minimum neuromuscular distance was 600 A. The present findings are correlated with the lightmicroscopically demonstrated adrenergic and cholinergic innervation. The resultant problems and functional consequences of the innervation of the kidney, especially the nature of the cholinergic fibers (afferent or post-ganglionic parasympathetic fibers) are briefly discussed.