The Epineurium as a Diffusion Barrier

ACCORDING to Lorente de Nó 1 , it is “utterly impossible to believe that the connective tissue sheath of frog or bullfrog nerve could act as a diffusion barrier that would delay for considerable periods of time the penetration of solutes into the nerve”. This statement, reaffirmed in subsequent publ...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Nature (London) 1953-12, Vol.172 (4388), p.1045-1046
Main Author: LEHMANN, HANS JOACHIM
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Diffusion
Humanities and Social Sciences
Humans
letter
multidisciplinary
Old Medline
Science
Science (multidisciplinary)
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Summary:ACCORDING to Lorente de Nó 1 , it is “utterly impossible to believe that the connective tissue sheath of frog or bullfrog nerve could act as a diffusion barrier that would delay for considerable periods of time the penetration of solutes into the nerve”. This statement, reaffirmed in subsequent publications 2–4 , is diametrically opposed to the results of other authors who believe that both ‘desheathed’ nerves and individual nerve fibres react to a variety of substances much more rapidly than do intact nerves 5–11 . Lorente de Nó 2 , on the other hand, points out that neither the perimysium 12 , which resembles a nerve sheath in structure, nor the connective tissue sheath of the squid axon 13 functions as a diffusion barrier. He therefore refuses to allow a similar claim in the case of the frog's sciatic nerve, the sheath of which is no denser than the structures just mentioned. As further evidence, Lorente de Nó points out that the post-ganglionic trunk of the cat's superior cervical ganglion in microscopic section is claimed to show continuity between collagen fibres of epineurium and endoneurium.
ISSN:0028-0836
1476-4687
DOI:10.1038/1721045a0