The nervous and endocrine systems jointly control intestinal movements, secretions of their glands and also participate of the processes of nutrient digestion and absorption. Therefore, the central objective of this study was to verify the existence of a possible relationship between the number of nervous cells and ganglia of the submucosal and myenteric plexuses and the number of endocrine cells in the small intestine of adult D. aurita. The utilized staining techniques were Grimelius, modified Masson-Fontana, direct immunoperoxidase and H-E. Argyrophillic, argentaffin and insulin immunoreactive endocrine cells do not numerically vary between the initial, mid and final regions of the duodenum, jejunum and ileum (P>0.05), except for argyrophillic cells... |