Small, intensely fluorescent cells and the paraneuron concept

Sympathetic ganglia contain large principal nerve cells and, in addition, many smaller cells that resemble the endocrine cells of the adrenal medulla in morphology and chromaffinity. The advent of the formaldehyde-induced fluorescence technique proved to be an invaluable tool for studying this unique cell type, and it was this method that accounted for their descriptive name of small, intensely fluorescent cells, now universally abbreviated to SIF cells. Electron microscopy also proved of great importance in detailing the structure of SIF cells and their relationship with neighbouring neurones. Fine structural observations revealed that the cells contained numerous dense-cored granules, and this led to their electron microscopic name of small, granule-containing cells. SIF cells are most abundant, and very well studied, in the rat superior cervical ganglion, where they both receive and give synapses. Early researchers suggested that SIF cells were interneurones appropriately situated between pre- and postganglionic elements and thus capable of influencing ganglion signals. SIF cells also are known to exist in the form of richly vascularized, compact clusters of varying size. Clustered chromaffin cells do not necessarily give rise to processes that would contact the principal neurones. The existence of singly occurring as well as clustered SIF cells has given rise to a proposed designation of type I and type II cells, with I representing the interneuronal-like form and II possibly performing as an endocrine-like component. Despite a wealth of knowledge concerning SIF cells, their exact role(s) in the overall functioning of the autonomic nervous system is still not completely understood.