Dissimilar responses of adult thalamic monoaminergic and somatosensory afferent fibers to implantation of thalamic fetal cells

Abstract

It is generally accepted that transplanted fetal neurons can, after several weeks to months, establish connections with the host CNS. Host afferent systems seem, however, to show different types of responses to the presence of grafted fetal neurons. The present study is a preliminary step to identify mechanisms involved in the reactions of adult axons to transplanted fetal neurons. The right ventrobasal thalamus of adult rats was depleted of neurons by in-situ injection of kainic acid and cell suspensions from homotopic thalamic embryonic primordia which were injected into the lesioned area. After various post-implantation delays, ranging from five to 30 days, two types of experiments were performed: (i) noradrenaline and serotonin immunohistochemistry with specific antibodies on alternate sections; and (ii) anterograde tracing using wheat germ agglutinin conjugated to horseradish peroxidase from the dorsal column nuclei and the principal sensory trigeminal nucleus. Five days after transplantation, host monoaminergic fibers (either noradrenergic or serotoninergic) had already grown into the transplants. Ingrowing fibers were thin and poorly varicose, exhibiting endings morphologically similar to the growth cones observed during axogenesis. Seven days after grafting, growth cones were no longer visible and monoaminergic fibers exhibited either normal-sized or very large varicosities. Large varicosities progressively decreased in number and, after three weeks, the fibers displayed a normal adult morphology, forming a dense network all over the transplants. In contrast, host somatosensory afferents, labeled by anterograde transport of wheat germ agglutinin conjugated to horseradish peroxidase, did not grow into the transplants. Intermingling of somatosensory afferents and transplanted cells was observed only after 10 days, when grafted neurons extended outside the original transplantation site into the neuron-depleted area containing the somatosensory afferents. The present results demonstrate that adult monoaminergic and somatosensory afferents, when deprived of their usual target, do not react in a similar way to the addition of fetal neurons. It is proposed that adult monaminergic fibers have the ability to regain morphological (and probably functional) immature forms which were considered to be restricted to the period of axogenesis or to lesion-induced regeneration. In contrast, fetal transplants do not seem to induce, by themselves, a similar alteration of genetic expression in adult somatosensory neurons. It has been proposed that "diffuse" and "point-to-point" axonal systems may be differentiated in the CNS on anatomical bases. The present results add to the identification of two different systems by demonstrating that, in the thalamus, they present dissimilar responses to the implantation of fetal cells.