Summary
Irides from 3–5 day old rats have been grown 1–3 mm from superior cervical or lumbar paravertebral sympathetic ganglia in modified Rose chambers.
The two muscles of the iris received distinctly different innervation patternsin vitro, and these were similar to those seenin vivo. Varicose, adrenergic fibres were consistently associated with the dilator pupillae rather than with the sphincter pupillae while excitatory, cholinergic junctions developed between the nerve fibres and the muscle cells of the sphincter but not the dilator.
There was a lack of specificity shown by the sympathetic neurons during this innervation. Fibres from lumbar ganglia formed plexuses within the dilator similar to those formed by superior cervical fibres, and sympathetic, cholinergic fibres were able to substitute for the normal parasympathetic, cholinergic fibres in the sphincter.
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Hill, C.E., Purves, R.D., Watanabe, H. et al. Specificity of innervation of iris musculature by sympathetic nerve fibres in tissue culture. Pflugers Arch. 361, 127–134 (1976). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00583456
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00583456