The peripheral reorganization of pulpal nerves after tooth injury was studied, in the rat, with anterograde horseradish peroxidase tracing techniques, and combined retrograde Fluorogold tracing and immunohistochemistry was employed to examine the effects of inferior alveolar nerve lesions or tooth injury on some cytochemical characteristics of pulpal trigeminal ganglion nerve cells, namely content of substance P, calcitonin gene-related peptide and the ganglioside GM1 (binding subunit of cholera toxin), as well as affinity to RT 97 (antibody to neurofilament protein) and the lectin Griffonia simplicifolia isolectin I-B4. Anterograde horseradish peroxidase tracing demonstrated that pulpal nerves either disappear or reinnervate novel targets after loss of pulpal tissue. There were no obvious signs of neuroma formation. Retrograde Fluorogold labelling with immunohistochemistry showed that after inferior alveolar nerve lesions with subsequent regeneration, a much higher proportion of Fluorogold cells (15%) were substance P-positive compared to normal (2%). In addition, 3% of the cells were Griffonia simplicifolia isolectin I-B4-positive. Such cells were very rare in controls. Proportions of calcitonin gene-related peptide-, GM1- and RT-97-positive cells were normal. After tooth lesions, the proportions of Fluorogold-positive substance P-, Griffonia simplicifolia isolectin I-B4-, GM1- and RT 97-labelled cells were similar to controls, while the proportion of calcitonin gene-related peptide-positive neurons was reduced. The results show that pulpal deafferentation may change the long-term cytochemical characteristics of affected trigeminal ganglion neurons.