Meissner corpuscles: mechanoreceptors and much more: initial guidelines for clinical application

  1. López-Muñiz A. 1
  2. Calavia MG 1
  3. Cabo R 1
  4. García-Suárez O 1
  5. Viña E 1
  6. Menéndez-González M 12
  7. del Valle ME 1
  8. Vega JA 13
  1. 1 Departamento de Morfología y Biología Celular
  2. 2 Hospital Alvarez-Buylla
    info

    Hospital Alvarez-Buylla

    Mieres del Camino, España

  3. 3 Universidad de Oviedo
    info

    Universidad de Oviedo

    Oviedo, España

    ROR https://ror.org/006gksa02

Show affiliations +
Proceedings:
XXV Congress of the spanish Society of Anatomy

ISSN: 1136-4890,  2340-311X

Year of publication: 2011

Volume: 15

Issue: S1

Pages: 34

Congress: XXV Congress of the spanish Society of Anatomy

Type: Conference paper

GOOGLE SCHOLAR lock_openOpen access editor

Abstract

During the last decade skin biopsy has been confirmed as a tool for providing diagnostic information on some peri- pheral neuropathies. Most of the studies were focused on intraepithelial nerve fibers. Conversely, few studies have investigated large myelinated fibers or whether human Meissner corpuscles change or not quantitative or qualitatively in pathologies of the peripheral or the central nervoussystem. The main aim of this presentation is to provide acomprehensive review on Meissner corpuscles including itsdistribution and structure, density and age-dependent chan-ges; its development, neuronal dependence, proteins andphysiology. We also remark their involvement in severalpathologies; at the time we suggest including Meissner cor-puscles in the routine study of skin biopsies. Finally we pro-pose a protocol to study Meissner corpuscles in skin biopsiesand give a vision on future perspectives for implementingtheir study in clinical practice.Very recently another unexpected function for Meissnercorpuscles has emerged. In the palatal Meissner-like sensorycorpuscles of the mouse there are clusters of neurogeniccells. Here also present the preliminary studies of our groupdemonstrating the occurrence of nestin-positive cells inhuman cutaneous Meissner corpusles