Insect peripheral nerves: accessibility of neurohaemal regions to lanthanum

During incubation in vivo, exogenously applied ionic lanthanum comes to surround the numerous neurosecretory terminals which are found lying within or immediately beneath the acellular neural lamella ensheathing the nerves from fifth instar and adult specimens of Rhodnius prolixus. The lanthanum does not penetrate beyond the cellular perineurium, which completely surrounds the non-neurosecretory axons in these nerves and constitutes a form of 'blood-brain barrier'. In some cases, however, lanthanum is found in the vicinity of a neurosecretory axon lying beneath the perineurium, where it can be assumed to have leaked in from the neurosecretory terminal lying free in the neural lamella. When nerves are incubated in calcium-free media, regions with an attenuated perineurium become 'leaky', in that lanthanum is found lying in those extracellular spaces between axons and glia which lie immediately below the thin part of the perineurial layer. Bathing solutions made slightly hyperosmotic to the haemolymph with sucrose have no apparent disruptive effects on the barrier. When the tissues are incubated in more hypertonic solutions, the perineurial barrier becomes 'leaky' throughout, and tracer pervades beyond its cells into all the intercellular spaced between glia and axons. The possible role of the zonulae occludentes in both the maintenance of the perineurial barrier and in the formation of interglial occlusions to local penetration of exogenous substances is considered.