Tension receptors associated with muscles in the walking legs of the horseshoe crab,limulus polyphemus

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Abstract
Mechanosensory activity was recorded extracellularly from branches of the internal pedal nerve in the femur of the horseshoe crab walking leg. The receptors appeared to be associated with the tibial flexor muscles and generally showed little spontaneous activity in the isolated leg. Sensory activity was most easily and reliably elicited by active flexor contraction against a load, and it did not require joint movement. The neurons responsible for this activity appear to be true series tension receptors. Since such cells are likely to be adequately stimulated only by tension developed in muscle fibers with which they are in series, whole muscle tension is not always directly related to the activity of a given receptor. In order to estimate the magnitude of the force at a receptor under study various indirect methods of altering the tension in and spatial relationships between the fibres of a single muscle were employed. These include active stimulation while (a) fixing the muscle at various lengths (joint angles), (b) lengthening or shortening the muscle passively over a wide range and at varying rates. The results obtained are consistent with the suggestion that the sensory cells are series tension receptors.