Static input-output relations in the spinal recurrent inhibitory pathway

✍ Scribed by S. Cleveland; A. Kuschmierz; H.-G. Ross

• Book ID: 104779550
• Publisher: Springer-Verlag
• Year: 1981
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 896 KB
• Volume: 40
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0340-1200
• DOI: 10.1007/bf00453372

✦ Synopsis

The static discharge rate of Renshaw cells (studied in deafferented, intercollicularly decerebrate cats) has a nonlinear dependence on the frequency of trains of stimulus impulses to e-motor axons in the ventral root. This dependence is well described by a 9 rectangular hyperbola that approaches saturation with increasing stimulus frequency. The tendency to saturate is independent of the number of motor axons exciting a Renshaw cell. On average, the stimulus frequency at which the discharge rate reaches half its saturation value lies between 10 and 15 Hz. The effect of Renshaw cell activity -measured as the antidromic inhibition of individual e-motoneurons -reflects the form of the static frequency characteristics. An electric circuit analog of the Renshaw cell membrane is presented which serves to explain the qualitative features of the static input-output relations ; the nonlinearity is the result of synapses with linear properties acting together at the cell membrane.