Nerve Endings on Chromaffin Cells in the Rat Adrenal Medulla

Abstract

SINCE Fusari¹ and Dogiel² published accounts of the adrenal medullary nerve plexuses many different opinions have been expressed concerning the question of nerve-endings in relation to chromaffin cells. The majority of workers claim to have seen extracellular endings in the form of platelets or boutons and Willard³ described end-boutons and boutons de passage. Nerve fibres ending in a terminal anastomosing net of neurofibrils—the so-called ‘terminal reticulum’—were described by Stöhr⁴ and Sato⁵. Hillarp⁶, however, using a methylene blue technique found no evidence of nerve-endings and stated that the nerve fibres run in fine bundles in a terminal Schwann plasmodium, the composite mass forming the ‘nervous ground plexus’.