This preclinical study maps the adrenergic innervation of the skeletal muscle vascular bed in cats, demonstrating a rich supply to arterial vessels and sparse supply to veins and capillaries.
Abstract Fuxe K. and G. Sedvall. The distribution of adrenergic nerve fibres to the blood vessels in skeletal muscle . Acta physiol. scand. 1965. 64 . 75–86. The distribution and morphological construction of the adrenergic innervation to the various sections of the vascular bed in skeletal muscle of the cat were studied using a specific histochemical fluorescence technique. A typical adrenergic ground plexus (Hillarp 1946, 1959) was seen directly superimposed on the smooth muscle layer of the vessels. The nerve terminals seldom penetrated into this layer. The arteries entering the muscles showed only a sparse amount of adrenergic fibres, whereas the intra‐muscular arteries, arterioles and metarterioles exhibited a fairly rich supply. The innervation was uniform, no definite accumulation of adrenergic fibres being observed in any section of the vascular bed. The capillaries did not seem to receive any adrenergic fibres. The vessels on the venous side had a very sparse innervation. Single nerve bundles could be observed in relation to some small venules (20–40 μ) but only occasionally were adrenergic fibres seen around intramuscular veins with diameters above 50 μ. Possible mechanisms for the mediation of nervous vasoconstrictor stimuli to the various vessel sections are discussed.
Fuxé et al. (Sat,) studied this question.