The origin of sensory innervation of the peritoneum in the rat

Abstract

The distribution of sensory neurons innervating the peritoneum was studied using axonal transport of fluoro-gold. The tracer was injected into parietal peritoneum, diaphragm, mesentery, mesocolon, visceral peritoneum covering the stomach, small intestine, colon, liver, spleen, kidney, urinary bladder or uterus. After ten days of survival bilateral dorsal root ganglia from C2 to S6, and the nodose ganglia were dissected. The cryostat sections of these ganglia were mounted on glass slides and observed with a fluorescence microscope. In cases where the tracer was placed on the peritoneum covering the abdominal wall, labeled neurons were observed only in the ipsilateral dorsal root ganglia. A small number of neurons in nodose and cervical dorsal root ganglia of both sides were labeled after placing the tracer on the central part of the diaphragm. When fluoro-gold was applied to the peripheral part of the diaphragm, nodose ganglion was negative, and dorsal root ganglia from T6 to T12 were positive. Many neurons in the nodose ganglia in addition to somata in the dorsal root ganglia from T4 to T13 were labeled when the tracer was placed on the peritoneum lining the stomach, small intestine or caecum. After applying the tracer onto the colon, labeled neurons were observed in the dorsal root ganglia from T13 to L2 and L5 to S1. Ganglion cells in the nodose and dorsal root ganglia from T5 to T13 were positive when fluoro-gold was placed on the mesentery. No labeled neurons were observed in any ganglia when the tracer was applied to the peritoneum covering the spleen, kidney, uterus, urinary bladder and liver. These results suggest that most of the parietal peritoneum receives sensory nerves from dorsal root ganglia and the visceral peritoneum from both spinal nerves and the vagus nerve.

Cyclophosphamide-Induced Bladder Inflammation Sensitizes and Enhances P2X Receptor Function in Rat Bladder Sensory Neurons

“…Two to 3 wk later, TL DRGs (T13-L2) were removed, fixed in 4% paraformaldehyde, cryoprotected, cut at a thickness of 10 μm, and examined by fluorescence microscopy (see following text). We studied only TL DRGs because the cell bodies of neurons that innervate the parietal peritoneum (and bladder) are located in thoracolumbar DRGs (Applebaum et al 1980;Tanaka et al 2002).…”

“…We addressed this concern by injecting DiI into the bladder wall and FB into the adjacent parietal peritoneum and looked for double-labeled DRG cells. Because cell bodies of neurons innervating the parietal peritoneum and the bladder are found in TL DRGs (Applebaum et al 1980;Tanaka et al 2002), we examined only TL DRGs. Of 89 DiI and 179 FB neurons examined, only 4 cells contained both dyes, demonstrating that DiI can be used to reliably and selectively label sensory neurons for whole cell study.…”

Peritoneal innervation: embryology and functional anatomy

“…Anatomically, visceral afferents are distributed according to the type and function of the target organ. Spinal visceral afferent neurons project segmentally to the laminae I and V and deeper of the spinal dorsal horn [9]: -stomach, small intestine or caecum: T4 to T12, -colon: T12 to L2 and L5 to S1, -mesentery: T5 to T12.…”

Distribution and Ultrastructure of Afferent Fibers in the Parietal Peritoneum of the Rat

“…It is well known that sensory nerves innervate both the visceral peritoneum (Bentley et al, 1981;Gebhart, 2000;Ward et al, 2003) and the parietal peritoneum (Bahns et al, 1986). The parietal peritoneum is innervated by the neurons of the dorsal root ganglia (DRG) that supply the muscles and the skin of the abdominal wall, whereas the visceral peritoneum is innervated by not only the neurons of the vagal ganglia but also the DRG (Warwick and Williams, 1973;Tanaka et al, 2002). There are several reports about the innervation of sensory afferent fibers in the serous membrane covering the gut (Iggo, 1986;Ward et al, 2003;Song et al, 2009;Zagorodnyuk et al, 2010).…”

“…In our previous study (Tanaka et al, 2002), the distribution of the cell bodies of sensory neurons innervating the peritoneum was studied using the retrograde tracer Fluorogold. When Fluorogold was applied on the parietal peritoneum, retrogradely labeled neurons were found only in the ipsilateral DRG and were distributed in a segmental fashion.…”