Decrease and disappearance of intramural neurons in the rat bladder during post-natal development

Abstract

While confirming previous results that the bladder of adult female rats is devoid of intramural neurons, we show that during postnatal development some intramural neurons are present. There is about 200 of them per bladder at birth, and their number progressively decreases during post-natal life. In this strain of rats some neurons are still present at 12 weeks of age, and in one animal (out of five) there were still 25 neurons at 20 weeks of age.