Morphology of the pineal gland in the freshwater fish, Notopterus notopterus (Pallas)

R.S.Kulkarni; Safiya Tazeen; Pruthviraj C.B.

Volume : V, Issue : XII, December - 2016

Morphology of the pineal gland in the freshwater fish, Notopterus notopterus (Pallas)

R. S. Kulkarni, Safiya Tazeen, Pruthviraj C. B.

Abstract :

The pineal gland of Notopterus notopterus consists of 3 separate but distinctly connected components and it is located dorsal to the foreain immediately below or within the skull roof. The pineal complex is well vascularized in this species The diagrammatic presentation was constructed based on the thick free hand sections and it was found that it has an end vesicle (EV) present just below the roof of cranium, a long and curved pineal stalk (PS) and a dorsal sac (DS). Histological studies showed that the pineal gland consist of about 80% of the cells that have rounded vesicular nuclei, which are pinealocytes. These pinealocytes positively stain with haematoxylin and eosin, the remaining cells may be astrocytes, which cannot be seen on H&E stained slides. melatonin administration at different doses alters the GSI (TSI),HSI and BSI.