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Neuroscience and Behavioral Physiology, Vol. 39, No. 3, 2009
The Sympathetic Neural Apparatus of the Rat Uterus During the Sexual Cycle
S. V. Dindyaev and S. Yu. Vinogradov
Translated from Rossiiskii Fiziologicheskii Zhurnal imeni I. M. Sechenova, Vol. 94, No. 1, pp. 117122, January, 2008. Original article submitted May 17, 2007. Revised version received August 15, 2007.
A microspectral fluorescence-histochemical method was used to study the sympathetic neural apparatus of the rat uterus at different phases of the sexual cycle. Most nerve fibers, as perivascular plexuses and terminals emanating from them, were located in the myometrium. It is suggested that the uterus contains reserve (silent nerve fibers, which explains the variability in their appearance in this organ. Microspectrofluorimetric studies identified catecholamines and serotonin in varicose swellings and inter-varicosity segments of nerve fibers; levels at test points showed a strong linear correlation at all stages of the sexual cycle. The greatest bioamine levels in most structural elements of the sympathetic neural apparatus of the uterus were seen in late diestrus. Early and late estrus and proestrus were characterized by low monoamine levels in adrenergic fibers. A number of significant differences were seen between the level of saturation with bioamines and the spatial distribution density of nerve fibers in the body and cervix of the uterus.
KEY WORDS: sympathetic nerve fibers, serotonin, catecholamines, sexual cycle, rat uterus.
The uterus has a multilevel regulatory system based on the principle of hierarchical interactions of phylogenetically older and younger control methods. A leading place in this complex is associated with biogenic amine neurotransmitters [1, 10]. Most studies of the neurotransmitter profile [7, 8] have addressed the adrenergic innervation of the myometrium at the descriptive level without mathematical analysis of the dynamics of measures of the spatial architectonics of the neural apparatus and the intraorgan metabolism of biogenic amines during the sexual cycle.
The aims of the present work were to identify patterns in the dynamics of the spatial organization of the sympathetic neural apparatus of the body and cervix of the uterus in rats and to identify the differential contents of catecholamines and serotonin in these structures during the sexual cycle.
METHODS
Studies were performed using 120 intact female mongrel white rats of reproductive age in the autumn-winter period, which...