Impaired glucagon response to sympathetic nerve stimulation in the BB diabetic rat: effect of early sympathetic islet neuropathy.
We investigated the functional impact of a recently described islet-specific loss of sympathetic nerves that occurs soon after the autoimmune destruction of beta-cells in the BB diabetic rat (35). We found that the portal venous (PV) glucagon response to sympathetic nerve stimulation (SNS) was markedly impaired in newly diabetic BB rats (BB D). We next found a normal glucagon response to intraveno