Gamma-Aminobutyric Acid-Inhibitory Motor Innervation of Leg Muscles of the Shore Crab

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Abstract
The inhibitory motor innervation of a crustacean leg was studied in the crab, Carcinus maenas. In in vitro preparations of the central nervous system and the proximal leg nerves, motor nerve recordings demonstrate the presence of a single common inhibitory motor neuron which elicits picrotoxin-sensitive inhibitory junction potentials in a distal leg muscle, the accessory flexor. This inhibitor is the common inhibitor (CI). Immunohistochemical detection of the inhibitor motor neuron neurotransmitter, gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA), allows us to identify three immunoreactive motor neuron axons in sections of the distal leg nerves and of proximal leg nerves. One corresponds to the CI whereas the other two are the specific inhibitors, one to the stretcher and one to the opener muscles. After nickel chloride backfills of the CI in proximal leg nerves, GABA immunodetection fails and thus confirms that CI is the single inhibitor having branches in proximal leg nerves. These results demonstrate that the inhibitory motor innervation of a crab leg comprises three and only three inhibitors: the common inhibitor innervating all leg muscles and the two specific inhibitors, each innervating a single distal leg muscle. Further conclusions can be drawn: first, a muscle innervated by more than one excitatory axon has no specific inhibitor; second, sensory afferents are not mediated by GABA. Finally, during locomotion, the leg muscles receive two very distinct types of motor input: one common to all the muscles coming from the common inhibitor which was previously shown by other authors to prevent build-up of tension in the muscles, thus allowing each muscle to contract according to the specific motor input it receives from its own excitors.

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