Extrinsic innervation of ileum and pelvic flexure of foals with ileocolonic aganglionosis.

Equine ileocolonic aganglionosis, which is also called lethal white foal syndrome (LWFS), is a severe congenital condition characterized by the unsuccessful colonization of neural crest progenitors in the caudal part of the small intestine and the entire large intestine. LWFS, which is attributable to a mutation in the endothelin receptor B gene, is the horse equivalent of Hirschsprung's disease in humans. Affected foals suffer from aganglionosis or hypoganglionosis of the enteric ganglia resulting in intestinal akinesia and colic.

Excitatory and inhibitory enteric innervation of horse lower esophageal sphincter.

The lower esophageal sphincter (LES) is a specialized, thickened muscle region with a high resting tone mediated by myogenic and neurogenic mechanisms. During swallowing or belching, the LES undergoes strong inhibitory innervation. In the horse, the LES seems to be organized as a "one-way" structure, enabling only the oral-anal progression of food.

Enteric neuroplasticity in seawater-adapted European eel (Anguilla anguilla).

European eels live most of their lives in freshwater until spawning migration to the Sargasso Sea. During seawater adaptation, eels modify their physiology, and their digestive system adapts to the new environment, drinking salt water to compensate for the continuous water loss. In that period, eels stop feeding until spawning.

Role of palatine tonsils as a prion entry site in classical and atypical experimental sheep scrapie.

Atypical and classical scrapie-infected sheep brain tissue was monolaterally injected into the tonsils of lambs to investigate their role as a prion entry point. We first detected classical PrP(Sc) within the inoculated tonsil and in the ipsilateral retropharyngeal lymph node at 3 months postinoculation (p.i.

Neurochemistry of myenteric plexus neurons of bank vole (Myodes glareolus) ileum.

The neurochemistry of enteric neurons differs among species of small laboratory rodents (guinea-pig, mouse, rat). In this study we characterized the phenotype of ileal myenteric plexus (MP) neuronal cells and fibers of the bank vole (Myodes glareolus), a common rodent living in Europe and in Northern Asia which is also employed in prion experimental transmission studies. Six neuronal markers were tested: choline acetyltransferase (ChAT), neuronal nitric oxide synthase (nNOS), calbindin (CALB), calcitonin gene-related peptide (CGRP) and substance P (SP), along with HuC/D as a pan-neuronal marker.