Segmental specificity of chick sympathetic preganglionic projections is influenced by preganglionic neurons from neighboring spinal cord segments

Sympathetic preganglionic neurons of the chick are located between the brachial and lumbosacral enlargements of the spinal cord. Their axons exit the spinal cord via their adjacent ventral roots and project rostrally or caudally along the sympathetic trunk to innervate sympathetic ganglia. The projections of sympathetic preganglionic neurons are segmentally specific. Neurons from the 16th cervical (C16) and the first thoracic (T1) spinal cord segments project predominantly in the rostral direction, whereas those from the fifth thoracic (T5) to the first lumbar (L1) spinal segments project predominantly in the caudal direction. Neurons from intervening spinal cord segments (T2-T4) project in rostral and caudal directions. In the present study, neural tube manipulations show that the direction of preganglionic projections is altered by both the elimination and addition of preganglionic neurons projecting into the sympathetic trunk from neighboring segments. The present study also compares the projections of preganglionic neurons from transplants of multiple neural tube segments with those from transplants of single neural tube segments reported in a previous study (Yip, 1987). In the previous study when single thoracic neural tube segments were transplanted to the cervical level, preganglionic neurons did not maintain their original projection patterns. The present study found that, when contiguous neighboring segments were transplanted to the cervical level, preganglionic neurons maintained projection patterns characteristic of their original segmental levels. These results indicate that the direction of preganglionic projections can be influenced by neurons from neighboring segments, suggesting that the formation of segmentally specific preganglionic projections during embryogenesis may involve the interactions of preganglionic neurons with those from neighboring spinal cord segments.