The effects of temporary ischaemia on rat muscle spindles

Abstract

Soleus muscle of adult rat is revascularized 5-8 days after sectioning the supplying blood vessels. The temporary ischaemia thus produced results in the rapid concomitant degeneration of extra- and intrafusal muscle fibres along with their nerve terminals and supplying axons. The basal lamina of all muscle fibres usually remains intact throughout the degenerative phase. Necrotic sarcoplasm is removed by phagocytic cells. Satellite cells survive the temporary ischaemia and give rise to presumptive myoblasts which fill the basal-lamina tubes. These myoblasts fuse to form myotubes which, by the 14th day after devascularization, are maturing into muscle fibres in the absence of any innervation. Within the spindle, nuclear-bag fibres degenerate more rapidly than nuclear-chain fibres. Regeneration proceeds more rapidly within the basal-lamina tubes of the original bag fibres than within those of the chain fibres. Reinnervation of regenerating extra- and intrafusal fibres begins 21 days after devascularization and is completed some 7 days later, during which time further equatorial differentiation of some reinnervated intrafusal fibres may occur. Regenerated spindles vary considerably with respect to their innervation and equatorial nucleation. Most contain short, thin, additional muscle fibres as well as those that have regenerated within the basal-lamina tubes of the original fibres.