Experimental Anterograde Degeneration of Nerve Fibers: A Tool for Combined Light- and Electron-Microscopic Studies of the Insect Nervous System

Abstract

In 1850 Waller observed that the distal parts of glossopharyngeal nerve fibers—separated from their nerve cell bodies—were subjected to structural changes leading to degeneration. His experiment and discovery were the basis for the subsequent development of special techniques for tracing nerve fibers and their synaptic projections in the central nervous system. The so-called experimental Wallerian degeneration (anterograde or orthograde degeneration)¹ has since become a most valuable tool for neuroanatomical studies at the level of light and electron microscopy (see Gray and Guillery, 1966; Ebbesson, 1970; Heimer, 1970).