CHANGES IN GALVANIC SKIN REFLEX AFTER ACUTE SPINAL TRANSECTION IN NORMAL AND DECEREBRATE CATS

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Abstract
In normal cats - i.e., cats with intact brain - acute spinal transection causes a large decrease (50-90%) in the intensity of the galvanic skin reflex evoked by electric stimulation of the central stump of a severed cutaneous nerve. In decerebrate cats, which have lost the galvanic skin reflex, the same operation causes the reappearance of the reflex, the intensity of the reappeared reflex being 10-50% of the average level before decerebration. These two types of results were obtained in the same cats. The difference in the effects of acute spinal transection between normal and decerebrate cats is due to the fact that decerebration removes all supra-segmental excretory influences and leaves dominant the inhibitory influences from the bulbar ventromedial reticular formation on the galvanic skin reflex, so that when these inhibitory influences are removed by severance of the spinal cord, the reflex is released from bulbar inhibition and consequently reappears.