ArticleCell metabolism2011
Innervation patterns of autonomic axons in the human endocrine pancreas.
Article in Cell metabolism, 2011. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 200 papers.
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Who cites it
200 citing papers in PubMed, 341 citations in OpenAlex.
- Catheter-based endovascular celiac and hepatic denervation for type 2 diabetes: a multicenter, open-label, single-arm study.Signal transduction and targeted therapy · 2025Trial
- Short-Term Consumption of Sucralose with, but Not without, Carbohydrate Impairs Neural and Metabolic Sensitivity to Sugar in Humans.Cell metabolism · 2020Trial
- Structural and functional impact of cystic fibrosis on endocrine pancreatic innervation.Clinical science (London, England : 1979) · 2026Article
- Intra-Islet Paracrine Regulation of Glucagon Secretion During Hypoglycemia, Euglycemia, and Hyperglycemia.Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences · 2026Review
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- Mapping histologic and functional maturation of human endocrine pancreas across early postnatal periods.Nature communications · 2026Article
- A distinct vagus-beta cell neural circuit senses glucose and modulates insulin secretion.Molecular metabolism · 2026Article
- Heterogeneous endocrine cell composition defines human islet functional phenotypes.Nature communications · 2026Article
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- Activated Human Pancreatic Stellate Cells SignatureCommunication in Type 1 Diabetes.Research square · 2026Article
- The nerve center of organ engineering.Nature communications · 2025Review
- Pancreatic Cancer and Diabetes: Insights, Hypotheses, and Next Steps.International journal of molecular sciences · 2025Review
- Molecular and functional diversity of the autonomic nervous system.Nature reviews. Neuroscience · 2025Review
- Review
- Heterogeneous endocrine cell composition defines human islet functional phenotypes.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2025Article
- High-resolution imaging atlas reveals the context-dependent role of pancreatic sympathetic innervation in diabetic mice.Acta biochimica et biophysica Sinica · 2025Article
- Neuroimmune Interactions in Pancreatic Cancer.Biomedicines · 2025Review
- Parkinson's disease and glucose metabolism impairment.Translational neurodegeneration · 2025Review
- Bioprinting of bespoke islet-specific niches to promote maturation of stem cell-derived islets.Nature communications · 2025Article
140 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
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Authors and funding
7 authors at 2 institutions in 3 countries.
Funding
Abstract
The autonomic nervous system regulates hormone secretion from the endocrine pancreas, the islets of Langerhans, thus impacting glucose metabolism. The parasympathetic and sympathetic nerves innervate the pancreatic islet, but the precise innervation patterns are unknown, particularly in human. Here we demonstrate that the innervation of human islets is different from that of mouse islets and does not conform to existing models of autonomic control of islet function. By visualizing axons in three dimensions and quantifying axonal densities and contacts within pancreatic islets, we found that, unlike mouse endocrine cells, human endocrine cells are sparsely contacted by autonomic axons. Few parasympathetic cholinergic axons penetrate the human islet, and the invading sympathetic fibers preferentially innervate smooth muscle cells of blood vessels located within the islet. Thus, rather than modulating endocrine cell function directly, sympathetic nerves may regulate hormone secretion in human islets by controlling local blood flow or by acting on islet regions located downstream.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.