Volume 48, Issue 5, Pages 858-864 (November 2005) The Precise Location and Nature of the Nerves to the Male Human Urethra: Histological and Immunohistochemical Studies with Three-Dimensional Reconstruction  Ibrahim Karam, Stéphane Droupy, Issam Abd-Alsamad, Aiham Korbage, Jean-François Uhl, Gérard Benoît, Vincent Delmas  European Urology  Volume 48, Issue 5, Pages 858-864 (November 2005) DOI: 10.1016/j.eururo.2005.03.016 Copyright © 2005 Elsevier B.V. Terms and Conditions

Fig. 1 immunohistochemical images of nerve fibers; transverse sections of 25-week old male fetus (CRL 241mm). A: the unmyelinated nerves are situated on the lateral and anterior faces of seminal vesicles and penetrate into the bladder neck at 5 O’clock and at 7 O’clock (arrows). B and C: Luxol Fast Blue identification of myelinated nerves on the posterior face of the bladder neck (reduced from 20×). European Urology 2005 48, 858-864DOI: (10.1016/j.eururo.2005.03.016) Copyright © 2005 Elsevier B.V. Terms and Conditions

Fig. 2 Immunohistochemical images of nerve fibers from transverse sections of 36-week old male fetus (CRL 330mm). A and B: The nerves of prostate and urethra are situated outside and behind of the prostatic capsule and they receive behind the cavernous nerves of penis (arrows). European Urology 2005 48, 858-864DOI: (10.1016/j.eururo.2005.03.016) Copyright © 2005 Elsevier B.V. Terms and Conditions

Fig. 3 Three-dimensional reconstruction of nerve fibers from transverse sections of a 36-week-old male fetus (330mm CRL). A: The unmyelinated nerve fibers (in yellow) are situated in anterolateral position with respect to seminal vesicles and they penetrate into the bladder neck mainly by its posterolateral faces but also by the anterolateral faces. B: The myelinated nerve fibers (in green) follow the course of the unmyelinated fibers, and end in striated muscles of the prostatic capsule (in red). European Urology 2005 48, 858-864DOI: (10.1016/j.eururo.2005.03.016) Copyright © 2005 Elsevier B.V. Terms and Conditions

Fig. 4 Three-dimensional reconstruction of nervous fibers from transverse sections of 36-week old male fetus (CRL 330mm). A and B: the unmyelinated nerves (in yellow) give branches, which penetrate into the prostate (in magenta) and emerge from the verumontanum for innerved the prostate, the smooth muscles and the submucousa (in cyan). C: The striated muscular fibers (in red); situated at the anterolateral faces of the prostate, are innerved by myelinated nervous fibers (in green). European Urology 2005 48, 858-864DOI: (10.1016/j.eururo.2005.03.016) Copyright © 2005 Elsevier B.V. Terms and Conditions

Fig. 5 Three-dimensional reconstruction of nervous fibers from transverse sections of 34-week old male fetus (CRL 325mm). The cavernous nerves run on the anterior face of the rectum and on the posterior face of the prostate: in position more posterior and lateral than the nerves of the prostate (A: arrow). They wind gradually around the sphincter (B: arrow) to become anterior and to cross the perinea floor to join corpora cavernosa (star). European Urology 2005 48, 858-864DOI: (10.1016/j.eururo.2005.03.016) Copyright © 2005 Elsevier B.V. Terms and Conditions

Fig. 6 Three-dimensional reconstruction of nervous fibers from transverse sections of 40-week old male fetus (CRL 342mm). The majority of myelinated nervous fibers penetrate into the sphincter of its antero-lateral faces (A). These fibers penetrate into the striated muscular layer and reach the smooth muscular layer (B where the striated muscles were completely made transparent). C and D: The unmyelinated nerve fibers reached smooth muscles and the submucousa via the zone of intricacy between the striated and smooth muscles. European Urology 2005 48, 858-864DOI: (10.1016/j.eururo.2005.03.016) Copyright © 2005 Elsevier B.V. Terms and Conditions