Blood vascular bed of the rat pituitary intermediate lobe, with special reference to its development and portal drainage into the anterior lobe. A scanning electron microscope study of vascular casts.

Blood vascular beds of the rat pituitary intermediate lobes were reproduced by injection of low viscosity methacrylate media, and then observed with a scanning electron microscope. Although the intermediate lobes of newborn and pubescent rat were poorly vascularized, the adult rat intermediate lobe contained numerous capillaries forming a fairly independent network whose density, however, was not so great as in the anterior and posterior lobes. The vascular network of the intermediate lobe could be divided into two parts: a superficial plexus close to the anterior lobe, and a deep one close to the posterior lobe, though the two plexuses were continuous with each other. The superficial plexus consisted of anastomosing capillaries, and the deep one of non-anastomosing capillaries with a palisade-fashioned arrangement. The superficial plexus seemed crucially important for the blood supply of the intermediate lobe since it developed or thickened as the animals aged. The superficial plexus received its proper afferent vessels from the middle and posterior hypophyseal arteries and emitted its proper efferent vessels continuous with the sinusoidal capillaries of the anterior lobe. The capillaries of the deep plexus usually communicated with the arterial capillaries of the posterior lobe and possibly represented another afferent route to the superficial plexus. This paper, thus, strongly suggests a portal circulation from the intermediate lobe to the anterior lobe though its functional significance is unknown.