Interneuronal control of postural motorneurons in the lobster abdomen.
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Biomedical subjects
Publications and source records attributed to C H Page.
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The gills of Limulus are ventilated by a metachronal rhythm of movements of five pairs of gill plates. A gill plate is promoted and remoted by action of alternating nerve impulse bursts to antagonist promotor and remotor muscles. The motor output pattern is centrally generated, requiring no sensory feedback. Intracellularly recorded rhythmic activity of respiratory motoneurons consists of cyclic depolarization and spiking, and repolarization. The repolarizations have reversal potentials that indicate that motoneuron burst terminations result from synaptic inhibition. Intracellular and antidromic stimulation of motoneurons has little effect on other motoneurons. This apparent lack of interaction between motoneurons indicates that the central respiratory pattern is generated at interneuronal levels. Proprioceptive reflexes are present; they play little role in modulating the centrally generated motor pattern, but they are capable of partially entraining the rhythm when all gill plates are cycled at frequencies near the respiratory rate. Respiratory rate in intact animals is proportional to the ambient oxygen content, respiration ceasing in an anoxic environment. This oxygen dependence may result from sensory input from external oxygen receptors located in the cuticle between the coxae of the walking legs and within the lamellas of the book gills. The intercoxal units are inhibited by anoxia. Three classes of units are recorded from the gills: units excited by oxygen, units inhibited by oxygen, and units whose mechanosensitivity is oxygen dependent. These external oxygen receptors may modulate ventilation via command fibers present in the ventral nerve cord.
1. Responses of oxygen-sensitive units in the prosomal haemal nerve of Limulus polyphemus were examined while varying the oxygen content of sea water bathing the intercoxal cuticle. 2. When exposed to high oxygen levels these units units maintained a continuous background discharge of spikes. Unit activity was inhibited when oxygen content decreased. Upon reintroduction of oxygen tonic spike discharge resumed. 3. Mechanosensitive units with receptive fields on the prosomal shield or intercoxal cuticle were also present in the haemal nerve. Neither the mechanosensitivity nor the background discharge of these units was affected by changes in oxygen content. 4. It is proposed that the oxygen-sensitive respiratory reflexes of Limulus are an adaption to existence in the tertidal zone. Published observations of the respiratory stress responses of many intertidal animals support this hypothesis.
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Recordings were made from postural-control motor nerves with antagonistic functions in the crayfish abdomen through flexible suction electrodes. During unrestrained flexion of the abdomen, output from the tonic stretch receptor neuron of RM(1),(SR(1)) is sufficient to drive an extensor motor unit in the same segment. However, this intrasegmental "resistance" reflex is normally blocked by an intersegmental reflex in which output from SR(1)'s in caudal segments inhibits SR(1) discharge in more anterior segments.
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