Redlich-Obersteiner Zone

The Redlich-Obersteiner zone is seen as the boundary between the central and peripheral nervous system . It lies in the area where the posterior root ( radices dorsales ) enters the posterior horn ( cornu posterius ) of the spinal cord ( medulla spinalis ). In this area, the sensory ( afferent ) nerve fibers coming from the periphery appear without a medullary, but their medullary sheaths are actually only thinned and barely perceptible.

When examined with an electron microscope, it is noticeable that the actual limit is not linear, since the last Ranvier ring (before entering the spinal cord) marks the transition on each axon . Up to this last node, the sheath of the axon is still surrounded by a basement membrane and belongs to the peripheral nervous system, the internode that follows now has no basement membrane and marks the beginning of the central nervous system.

The basement membrane represents a boundary through which only axons pass.

literature

• Werner Kahle, Michael Frotscher: Pocket Atlas Anatomy . Thieme Verlag, Stuttgart 2005. ISBN 3-13-492209-6