Relationship between myelin sheath diameter and internodal length in axons of the anterior medullary velum of the adult rat

Abstract

Relations between myelin sheath diameters and internodal lengths were measured in whole mounts of osmium stained intact anterior medullary velum (AMV) from glutaraldehyde perfused adult rats. The AMV is a sheet of CNS tissue which roofs the IVth ventricle and contains fascicles of myelinated fibres which arise mainly from the nucleus of the IVth cranial nerve. These fibres displayed a broad range of myelin sheath external diameters and internodal lengths, from < 1–12 μm and 50–750 μm, respectively. Myelin sheath external diameter was a measurement of the axonal diameter plus the thickness of its myelin sheath, while internodal length was measured as the distance between consecutive nodes. There was a broadly linear relationship between myelin sheath diameters and internodal lengths, with the smaller diameter sheaths tending to have shorter internodes than the larger. However, the correlation was weak and for any given diameter myelin sheaths displayed considerable variation in their internodal lengths. The smallest diameter myelin sheaths, < 4 μm, consistently had shorter internodes than predicted by a linear regression and, in an analysis of consecutive internodes in single fibres, the slope was flattened in fibres with a diameter > 4 μm. Our results indicated that small and large calibre fibres may have different myelin sheath diameter-internodal length interrelations.