A quantitative study of C‐mechanoreceptors in hairy skin of the cat.

Publisher Website
Google Scholar
Abstract
Single C-mechanoreceptor afferent units were examined by recording from fibers dissected from the saphenous nerves of cats anesthetized with chloralose. The receptive fields, averaging 4 .times. 3 mm when 10-50 .times. threshold stimuli were used, were in the hairy skin of the leg and foot. The extent and excitability of receptor terminals was tested by 2- and 3-point field studies. The excitability of terminals in 1 part of the field of a unit could be depressed without affecting the excitability of terminals elsewhere in the field. The afferent units could be excited by both inward and outward movement of the stimulus probe, in appropriate conditions; that is, there was non-directional sensitivity. After-discharge depended on restorative movements of the skin, not on a persistence of the response of the receptor to the original movement. The response to mechanical stimulation was slowly adapting with 2 time constants and the stimulus-response relationship was exactly described by a power function, with exponents ranging 0.6-1.3. The C-mechanoreceptors could be depressed by rapidly repeated or prolonged mechanical stimulation and the effect was confined to the excited terminals.