ANTIDROMIC ACTIVITY IN MOTOR NERVES AND ITS RELATION TO A GENERATOR EVENT IN NERVE TERMINALS

Publisher Website
Google Scholar
Abstract
A study of the antidromic postactivity responses which occur in mammalian nerve-muscle preparations after administration of physostigmine or aromatic quaternary ammonium ions revealed a distinction between two types of back-responses: one, appearing in motor axons which carried a primary efferent volley; the other, elicited by massive activity in overlapping motor units and centripetally conducted in motor axons which did not carry a primary orthodromic volley. Back-responses of the former type exhibit an activity-recovery cycle considered indicative for a succession of negative and positive after-potentials in motor nerve terminals, but back-responses of the latter type do not. These retrograde discharges are, therefore, interpreted as ephaptically evoked response of axons to activity in neighboring motor units.