Abstract
The carotid body is laid down at the site of the third branchial arch very close to its artery, which will come to form the initial part of the internal carotid artery, but its tissues are not thought to be derived directly from those of the branchial arch. In other words the carotid body is branchiomeric rather than branchiogenic. Its primordium has been thought to make its appearance in the human embryo at about 6 weeks of gestation (12.5 mm crown-rump length) as a condensation of undifferentiated mesodermal cells forming a thickening in the adventitia of the branchial arch artery (Boyd 1937). These cells, however, have been considered to give rise to the stroma of the carotid body and not to its functioning glomus cells. That appears to be the rôle of neuroblasts that migrate down the glossopharyngeal nerve from the petrosal ganglion (De Winiwarter 1939). The cytological features of these fetal glomic cells are shown in Fig. 5.1. Using flourescence microscopy, Korkala and Hervonen (1973) found a second source of neuroblasts in the form of a cord of catecholamine-containing cells that linked the carotid body and the superior cervical ganglion.
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© 1992 Springer-Verlag London Limited
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Heath, D., Smith, P. (1992). The Carotid Bodies in Fetuses, Neonates and Infants. In: Diseases of the Human Carotid Body. Springer, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4471-1874-9_5
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4471-1874-9_5
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