Innervation of the gastric wall related to acid secretion: a light and electron microscopy study on rats, rabbits and guinea pigs.

The increasing use of vagotomy for the surgical treatment of ulcers has stimulated interest in the structure and function of the gastric wall innervation. This paper presents a survey based on microphotographs (rat, rabbit, and guinea pig) of the stomach innervation. Special attention is paid to the relationship between the vagus nerve and the intramural nervous system and the ganglion cells, synaptic junctions in the gastric wall, the innervation of the mucosa and its relationship to mast and parietal cells. The functional significance of the findings is discussed: (1) the electron microscopic evidence of synaptic junctions on parietal cells shows that hydrochloric acid secretion is influenced directly by the nervous system. The nerves terminating at the parietal cells originate exclusively from the myenteric plexus where the vagus fibres already terminate without entering the mucosa. (2) The innervation of mast cells and their proximity to the parietal cells makes some indirect nervous influence on hydrochloric acid secretion likely.