Electrical Synapses between Motoneurons in the Spinal Cord of the Newborn Rat

Ventral roots of the newborn rat spinal cord were stimulated while recording intracellularly from motoneurons. In many cells, stimulation subthreshold for an antidromic action potential in the impaled cell produced a small, short-latency depolarization, which was unaffected by membrane polarization....

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Proceedings of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences Biological sciences, 1980-06, Vol.208 (1170), p.115-120
Main Authors: Fulton, Barbara P., Miledi, Ricardo, Takahashi, T.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Action potentials
Animals
Animals, Newborn
Axons
Cats
Depolarization
Electric Conductivity
Electrodes
Membrane potential
Motor Neurons - physiology
Rats
Spinal cord
Spinal Cord - physiology
Spinal Nerve roots
Synapses
Synapses - physiology
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Summary:Ventral roots of the newborn rat spinal cord were stimulated while recording intracellularly from motoneurons. In many cells, stimulation subthreshold for an antidromic action potential in the impaled cell produced a small, short-latency depolarization, which was unaffected by membrane polarization. This response (antidromic synaptic potential, a.s.p.) was also seen, in some cells, on stimulating the ventral root of an adjacent segment. Replacement of Ca2+ (2 mM) with Mn2+ (3 mM ) or Mg2+ (10 mM) completely abolished orthodromic synaptic potentials, but the a.s.p. persisted. These results strongly suggest that the a.s.p. is produced by an electrical interaction between motoneurons.
ISSN:0962-8452
0080-4649
0950-1193
1471-2954
2053-9193
DOI:10.1098/rspb.1980.0045