Cortical nephron

A cortical nephron is a nephron whose renal corpuscle lies relatively superficially in the renal cortex and whose Loop of Henle is usually shorter than that of a juxtamedullary nephron. The contrast concerns the position of the corpuscle and the depth of the loop. It does not mean that every part of a cortical nephron is confined to cortical tissue.^[ref]

A useful reconstruction starts at a glomerulus and follows the continuous tubule. A loop can enter the outer renal medulla and return to the cortex even though its corpuscle is superficial. A single transverse section through a tubule does not reveal either its complete path or the depth of its originating corpuscle. Thus anatomical tracing provides information beyond simply counting circular profiles in a histology image.

Both nephron classes perform glomerular filtration and tubular processing. Their different arrangements contribute differently to the medullary concentrating system, rather than dividing the kidney into a filtration-only class and a concentration-only class. Studies sampling visible surface tubules must also identify which nephrons are accessible before treating those samples as representative of all nephron types.^[ref]