The responses to nerve stimulation of the salivary gland of Nauphoeta cinerea Olivier.

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Abstract
Intracellular electrodes were used to study responses of acini of the salivary gland of N. cinerea to salivary duct nerve stimulation. The gland was a paired structure and offered the possibility of investigating the interaction between ipsi- and contralateral nerve stimulation. The characteristics of the responses were as previously described for field stimulation (House, 1973). The latency was of the order of 1 s and almost independent of the amplitude of the response which may attain a hyperpolarization of .apprx. 80 mV. The depolarization which sometimes followed could be dissociated from the preceding hyperpolarization and was presumably an independent response. The stimulus-response relationship showed that acini were multiply innervated. Those close to the mid line received axons from both ipsi- and contralateral salivary duct nerves. The response to a test stimulus T could be augmented by an immediately preceding conditioning stimulus C, the joint response being greater than the sum of the separate responses. This effect occurred even when C and T were delivered to different nerves. For longer intervals between C and T, the response to T was depressed.