AFFERENT-FIBERS AND SENSORY GANGLION-CELLS WITHIN OCULOMOTOR NERVE IN SOME MAMMALS AND MAN .2. ELECTROPHYSIOLOGICAL INVESTIGATIONS

  • 1 January 1978
    • journal article
    • research article
    • Vol. 116  (1) , 16-24
Abstract
This study localized with electrophysiological techniques, the central projections and terminations of the aberrant trigeminal fibers contained in the oculomotor nerve of the lamb. After severing a trigeminal root, single-shock electrical stimulation of the trigeminal axons present in the central stump of the ipsilateral oculomotor nerve evoked field potentials in the area of: the subnucleus gelatinosus of the nucleus caudalis trigemini at the level of C[cervical]I-C2; the main sensory trigeminal nucleus; the descending trigeminal nucleus and tract; the adjacent reticular formation. Units whose discharge rate was influenced by such a stimulation were also found in the same territories. These regions actually exhibited degenerations after cutting an oculomotor nerve. The trigeminal fibers which leave the 5th nerve at the level of the cavernous sinus and enter the brain stem through the 3rd nerve, end in the same structures which receive the terminations of the afferent fibers entering the brain stem through the sensory trigeminal root.