Remodelling during remyelination in the peripheral nervous system

Morphologic analysis of longitudinal sections of lumbar anterior root tissue from rabbits at different stages of chronic experimental allergic encephalomyelitis has revealed new information on Schwann cell behaviour during early remyelination. Some short remyelinated internodes were displaced laterally towards nodes as other internodes elongated in a stepise fashion to occupy the vacated axonal segments. This suggests that a Schwann cell possesses the ability to remodel its myelin sheath after the initial establishment of the internode. Subaxolemmal densification was found to be formed wherever pairs of Schwann cells overlapped and gap junctions were observed between young Schwann cells.