Nature 194, 310 - 312 (21 April 1962); doi:10.1038/194310a0

Nerve Endings on Chromaffin Cells in the Rat Adrenal Medulla

R. E. COUPLAND

Department of Anatomy, Queen's College, Dundee.

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'.

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