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. Author manuscript; available in PMC: 2014 Oct 1.
Published in final edited form as: Auton Neurosci. 2013 Apr 11;177(2):129–142. doi: 10.1016/j.autneu.2013.03.008

Figure 1.

Figure 1

The preparation of the LES-antral whole mounts that were examined for the inventory of endings and a map of the intramuscular arrays (IMAs) digitized and traced with Neurolucida. A. A dorsal side of the stomach illustrating the cut lines used (dashed lines) and the esophageal, LES, antral and pyloric tissue included in the whole mount (gray region). B. A mucosa-side view of the stomach, opened on the greater curvature, illustrating the cut lines and whole mount region designated as in panel A. C. A schematic of a normalized whole mount prepared, serosa up, once the mucosa and submucosa had been removed and the tissue had been processed with DAB, cleared, and flattened on a slide (the incision to remove the cupping of the cardia is not shown). The individual IMAs evaluated quantitatively are indicated with symbols. Once spread and flattened, the region of the whole mount concentric to the esophagus and containing clasp and sling muscle fibers had a radius of roughly 9 mm, as designated with the dashed circular line. The two solid lines that intersect at the middle of the lumen of the esophagus delimit the region of ±15° of a “frontal” equator (represented by the horizontal dashed line) where (a) clasp and sling muscles intermingled and IMAs could not be unequivocally classified as clasp or sling endings and (b) the terminals were compromised by the tissue incision employed to flatten the specimen. The locations of the sling IMAs analyzed are indicated with blue symbols; the locations of the clasp IMAs analyzed are indicated with red symbols. The red-colored IMA symbols that fall outside the circular clasp-sling measurement region designated by the dashed circle were probable LES endings outside the sampled region (but not included in the sample quantified). Also indicated are antral endings (purple and green) and pyloric endings (yellow) that were examined for comparisons with the clasp and sling IMAs. Additionally, the locations of the antral web ending afferents (gold triangles) used for comparative purposes are also designated.