The blood vascular architecture of the rat pineal gland: a scanning electron microscopic study of corrosion casts.

The blood vascular bed of the rat pineal gland was reproduced through a low viscosity methacrylate casting medium and observed with a scanning electron microscope. The pineal gland was located in front of the confluens sinuum which was formed by the confluence of the left and right transverse sinuses and the superior sagittal and great cerebral veins. The pineal gland was found to contain a rich vascular network of freely anastomosing capillaries. This network received a few afferent arteries from the posterior cerebral arteries while emitting ten to fifteen efferent veins. Most of these efferent veins drained into the upper segment of the great cerebral vein; the remaining one or two efferent veins continued directly into the confluens sinuum. A marked constriction, probably representing a venous valve or valve-like projection, was observed in the opening area of the great cerebral vein. Circular constrictions, probably representing sphincters, were imprinted in the efferent vessels. No direct vascular connection was noted between the pineal gland and the nervous tissues or between the pineal gland and the choroid plexuses of the third and lateral ventricles.