The authors conducted a study on human lumbar spine, aiming to assess and determine the different kinds of nervous fibers in normal and degenerated intervertebral discs. Ten cadaver’s lumbar spines with approximately 48 - 72 of death have been used. The pieces were submitted to simple X-ray and magnetic resonance tests. Subsequently to the tests, discs were divided into normal and degenerated. Then, they were dissected, divided into anterior and posterior according to the region, included in paraffin and an immunohistochemical study with S100 protein was performed. With the aid of Image-Pro Plus computer software (media cybernetics) ®, nervous fibers’ diameters were measured as micrometers and classified into four kinds of fibers. Four types of nervous fibers were found on different disc regions. The number and kind of fibers varied according to the region and degree of intervertebral disc degeneration. It was concluded that type-III fibers are more common at the anterior region; type-II and type-IV fibers are more common at the posterior region, and type-I fibers do not show any differences regarding anterior and posterior regions; in addition, a degenerated disc has a higher number of nervous fibers than a normal one.
Mechanoreceptors; Intervertebral disk; Spine; Comparative study; Magnetic resonance spectroscopy
