NEURONAL CONNECTIONS BETWEEN THE AURICULAR SKIN AND THE SYMPATHETIC PRE-GANGLIONIC AND POSTGANGLIONIC NEURONS OF THE DOG AS STUDIED BY USING PSEUDORABIES VIRUS

Pseudorabies virus (PrV) as a neuronal tracer was microinjected into t he concave surface of the puppy's left pinna to establish the morpholo gical basis of somato-visceral linkage. The virus infected neurons wer e detected by FITC conjugated with polyclonal swine anti-PrV serum. La belled neurons were localized in: (1) the trigeminal, geniculate and s uperior vagal ganglia; (2) the subnucleus caudalis of the spinal trige minal nucleus; (3) the intermediolateral column (IML) of the thoracolu mbar segments and (4) the sympathetic chain ganglia. Present results s uggest that when injected into the peripheral nerves, PrV was retrogra dely transported to the nerve cell bodies located in the respective se nsory ganglia. From the first order sensory neurons, the virus would s elf-replicate and was transported trans-synaptically via the brainstem nuclei and IML to reach the neurons in the sympathetic ganglia. (C) 1 998 Elsevier Science Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.