I. Nadelhaft et al., HYPERTROPHIC NEURONS INNERVATING THE URINARY-BLADDER AND COLON OF THESTREPTOZOTOCIN-DIABETIC RAT, Brain research, 609(1-2), 1993, pp. 277-283
Female rats were made diabetic with an intravenous injection of strept
ozotocin (STZ) producing bladder hypertrophy. Using fluorescent dyes i
njected into the bladder or the colon, we have measured the size of ne
urons in various ganglia associated with these organs in control and S
TZ-diabetic rats. These include (1) postganglionic neurons in the pelv
ic ganglion, (2) postganglionic neurons in the inferior mesenteric gan
glion, (3) dorsal root ganglion neurons, (4) sympathetic chain ganglio
n neurons, (5) preganglionic neurons in the sacral parasympathetic nuc
leus, (6) motor neurons in Onuf's nucleus innervating the external ure
thral sphincter. In addition we have measured neurons in some of these
groups for rats which have been maintained on a 5% sucrose in water a
nd restricted food diet. In the STZ-diabetic animals only those neuron
s which make direct contact with the bladder or the colon were found t
o be hypertrophied (15-70%). In the diuretic animals, only neurons dir
ectly innervating the bladder exhibited hypertrophy. We speculate that
a trophic factor transported from the organ to the neuron is responsi
ble for this effect.