The upper cervical corticospinal tract was transected on one side in adult rats. A suspension of ensheathing cells cultured from adult rat olfactory bulb was injected into the lesion site. This induced unbranched, elongative growth of the cut corticospinal axons. The axons grew through the transplant and continued to regenerate into the denervated caudal host tract. Rats with complete transections and no transplanted cells did not use the forepaw on the lesioned side for directed reaching. Rats in which the transplanted cells had formed a continuous bridge across the lesion exhibited directed forepaw reaching on the lesioned side.
Precisely localized focal stereotaxic electrolytic lesions were made in the corticospinal tract at the level of the first to second cervical segments in the adult rat. This consistently destroyed all central nervous tissue elements (axons, astrocytes, oligodendrocytes, microglia, and microvessels) in a highly circumscribed area.In a group of these rats immediately after lesioning, a suspension of cultured adult olfactory ensheathing cells was transplanted into the lesion site. Within the first week after transplantation, the cut corticospinal axons (identified by anterograde transport of biotin dextran) extended caudally along the axis of the corticospinal tract as single, fine, minimally branched sprouts that ended in a simple tip, often preceded by a small varicosity. By 3 weeks, the regenerating axons, ensheathed by P0-positive peripheral myelin had accumulated into parallel bundles, which now extended across the full length of the lesioned area and reentered the caudal part of the host corticospinal tract.The transplants contained two main types of cells: (1) p75-expressing S cells, which later formed typical peripheral one-to-one myelin sheaths around individual ensheathed axons, and (2) fibronectin-expressing A cells, which aggregated into tubular sheaths enclosing bundles of myelinated axons. The point of reentry of the axons into the central nervous territory of the caudal host corticospinal tract was marked by the resumption of oligodendrocytic myelination. Thus the effect of the transplant was to form a "patch" of peripheral-type tissue across which the cut central axons regenerated and then continued to grow along their original central pathway.
Small axons far outnumber larger fibers in the corticospinal tract, but the function of these small axons remains poorly understood. This is because they are difficult to identify, and therefore their physiology remains obscure. To assess the extent of the mismatch between anatomic and physiological measures, we compared conduction time and velocity in a large number of macaque corticospinal neurons with the distribution of axon diameters at the level of the medullary pyramid, using both light and electron microscopy. At the electron microscopic level, a total of 4,172 axons were sampled from 2 adult male macaque monkeys. We confirmed that there were virtually no unmyelinated fibers in the pyramidal tract. About 14% of pyramidal tract axons had a diameter smaller than 0.50 μm (including myelin sheath), most of these remaining undetected using light microscopy, and 52% were smaller than 1 μm. In the electrophysiological study, we determined the distribution of antidromic latencies of pyramidal tract neurons, recorded in primary motor cortex, ventral premotor cortex, and supplementary motor area and identified by pyramidal tract stimulation (799 pyramidal tract neurons, 7 adult awake macaques) or orthodromically from corticospinal axons recorded at the mid-cervical spinal level (192 axons, 5 adult anesthetized macaques). The distribution of antidromic and orthodromic latencies of corticospinal neurons was strongly biased toward those with large, fast-conducting axons. Axons smaller than 3 μm and with a conduction velocity below 18 m/s were grossly underrepresented in our electrophysiological recordings, and those below 1 μm (6 m/s) were probably not represented at all. The identity, location, and function of the majority of corticospinal neurons with small, slowly conducting axons remains unknown.
The ensheathing cells of the olfactory nerves are arranged end-to-end to form a continuous channel enclosing the olfactory axons from their origin in the olfactory mucosa to their termination in the olfactory bulb. On their outer surface, the olfactory ensheathing cell channels have a basal lamina and an outer encirclement of olfactory nerve fibroblasts. We present an anatomical model of the ensheathing arrangements for the entire transit of the olfactory axons from the horizontal basal cells of the mucosa through the nerves to the superficial astrocytes of the bulb. We used intracranial section of the olfactory nerves to induce a rapid retrograde loss of olfactory neurons and degeneration of their axons, followed by replacement of the neurons from stem cells in the mucosa and growth of the newly formed axons along the olfactory nerves. The olfactory ensheathing cells survive and play a vital role in this process. Unlike Schwann cells in damaged peripheral nerve, the olfactory ensheathing cells neither divide nor migrate. They are actively phagocytic for removal of the degenerating axons, and provide continuous stable open channels along which adventitious cells such as erythrocytes and macrophages can travel, and along which the newly formed axons can regenerate. We suggest that the persistence of these open channels is an important element in the effectiveness of the regeneration. These properties, which the olfactory ensheathing cells exert in collaboration with olfactory nerve fibroblasts, may also be involved in the reparative effects of these cells when transplanted into lesions of the spinal cord.
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