[Fine structure of intrafusal and extrafusal nerve segments of the rat muscle spindle after sciatic nerve transsection].

Intrafusal and extrafusal nerve segments in muscle spindles from lumbricalis muscles of the hindpaw of the rat were studied by electron microscopy from 10 h to 5 days after severance of the sciatic nerve. In several spindles examined, nerve fascicles piercing the spindle capsule in the equatorial region contained a large myelinated, a smaller myelinated, and an unmyelinated fiber. Unmyelinated fibers were not present in small fascicles leading to the polar region. The changes in the extrafusal nerve segments followed the pattern of Wallerian degeneration. Intra-axonal glycogen deposits were prominent in sensory fibers. The unmyelinated fibers were the earliest to degenerate, the large myelinated ones the latest. Differences between motor and sensory fiber degeneration emerged in their preterminal intrafusal segments and were analogous to those of the nerve endings. Terminal nerve fibers in the spindle equator succumbed to attack of mesenchymal cells, leaving extensive basement membrane reduplications around myelin debris-laden Schwann cells, while polar fibers were engulfed by Schwann cell processes, leaving regular bands of Büngner.