Abstract
Previous work has shown that injections to neonatal mammals of a specific antiserum to the nerve growth factor (AS-NGF) produce irreversible destruction of sympathetic ganglia1,2. The animals used in these studies were mice and rats. Because this treatment does not damage other nerve cells or produce adverse effects in other tissues and organs, the immunosympathectomized young and adult rodents do not exhibit—at gross inspection—somatic or behavioural differences compared with controls except for a marked ptosis3. Differences become apparent, however, when the treated rodents are submitted to physiological, pharmacological and behavioural tests4. We report here the dramatic effects that are produced by injections of purified antibodies to NGF in rat fetuses. A preliminary account of this work has already been presented5,6, and similar effects have been demonstrated in another laboratory.
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Aloe, L., Cozzari, C., Calissano, P. et al. Somatic and behavioural postnatal effects of fetal injections of nerve growth factor antibodies in the rat. Nature 291, 413–415 (1981). https://doi.org/10.1038/291413a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/291413a0
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