In nociceptors, the peripheral nerve terminal is a key site of information processing in the pain pathway where noxious stimuli are encoded into action potentials; however, little is known about the specific receptor/channel expression at this site. Peripheral nerve terminals interact with non-neuronal cells such as keratinocytes and there is growing evidence for an involvement of these cells in regulating nerve terminal excitability. Under pathophysiological conditions, changes in expression profiles of receptors/channels could contribute to the genesis of different pain states. Thus, it is of major interest to enable detailed investigation of nociceptive endings in vitro. In this study we employ outgrown neurites of dissociated DRG neurons as a model for sensory nerve terminals. A compartmented culture chamber (Campenot 1977; Campenot et al., 2009) was used to segregate outgrown neurites from their somata. Thus, selective support and/or stimulation of neurites or somata can be achieved. Moreover, co-culture of neurites and keratinocytes is feasible because the requirement of different media for keratinocytes and neurites on the one side and for somata on the other side can be met. Somata were grown in either NGF or GDNF containing medium to induce neurite outgrowth specifically in TrkA or GFRa-1 expressing somata. The same growth factors in different concentrations were added to one lateral compartment, the other one served as control. With NGF in the central compartment, neurites only grew into the NGF-containing lateral compartment, but not into the control compartment. In contrast, with GDNF, neurites grew also into the control compartment. This difference in outgrowth pattern suggests a distinct receptor-specific intracellular signaling cascade for neurite outgrowth. In fluorescence live cell imaging experiments, the proportion of neurites responding to capsaicin (300 nM) was about 60% with NGF and GDNF in all compartments, but only about 35% when GDNF was lacking in the lateral compartment. Using a compartmented culture chamber, neurites spatially segregated from their somata can be utilized to investigate, for example, phenotypes of subgroups of neurites and their putative interaction with non-neuronal cells.