When axons leave the CNS, they lose their neuroglial interrelationships and traverse a short transitional zone, where they are invested by an astroglial sheath enclosed in the basal lamina of the glia limitans. The basal lamina then becomes continuous with that of axon-investing Schwann cells, at which point the astroglial covering terminates. Schwann cells, therefore, are the axon-ensheathing cells of the PNS, equivalent functionally to the oligodendrocyte of the CNS (see Chap. 4). Along the myelinated fibers of the PNS, each internode of myelin is elaborated by one Schwann cell and each Schwann cell elaborates one internode [30]. This ratio of one internode of myelin to one Schwann cell is a fundamental distinction between this cell type and its CNS analog, the oligodendrocyte, which is able to proliferate internodes in the ratio of 1:30 or greater. Another distinction is that the Schwann cell body always remains in intimate contact with its myelin internode (Fig. 1-19), whereas the oligodendrocyte extends processes toward its internodes. Periodically, myelin lamellae open up into ridges of Schwann cell cytoplasm, producing bands of cytoplasm around the fiber, Schmidt-Lanterman incisures, reputed to be the stretch points along PNS fibers. These incisures usually are not present in the CNS. The PNS myelin period is 11.9 nm in preserved specimens, which is some 30% less than in the fresh state, in contrast to the 10.6 nm of central myelin. In addition to these structural differences, PNS myelin differs biochemically and antigenically from that of the CNS (see Chap. 4). Not all PNS fibers are myelinated, but in contrast to nonmyelinated fibers in the CNS, nonmyelinated fibers in the PNS are suspended in groups within the Schwann cell cytoplasm, each axon connected to the extracellular space by a short channel, the mesaxon, formed by the invaginated Schwann cell plasmalemma.