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Biomedical subjects

C D Hull

Publications and source records attributed to C D Hull.

At least 73 records · Page 4Linked to original sources

Preparation for movement in the cat. II. Unit activity in the basal ganglia and thalamus.

Of the movement-related units in the globus pallidus and entopeduncular nucleus 30--40% show early (more than 500 msec) onsets of their movement-related activity preceding self-initiated 'elbow'-flexing movements in cats. The medial pericruciate motor cortex and the VL-VA thalamic nuclei display similar distributions of onset times, in contrast to the lateral cruciate cortex where 97% of neurons change their activity much later. The possible significance of the early activity is discussed in relation to the notion of 'response set'. It is suggested that these data support the concept that the basal ganglia participate in the enabling and sequencing of movements rather than in directly causing them to occur.

Animals↗

The spontaneous firing patterns of forebrain neurons. III. Prevention of induced asymmetries in caudate neuronal firing rates by unilateral thalamic lesions.

Unilateral lesions interrupting striatal outputs and inputs (MFB lesions) produce a marked slowing of neuronal firing in the caudate nucleus contralateral to the side of the lesions without affecting neuronal firing in the ipsilateral caudate nucleus. Although the MFB lesion also interrupts the nigrostriatal pathway and depletes the ipsilateral striatum of dipamine and its associated enzymes, the slowing of unit firing rates is apparently due to interruption of striatal outputs rather than inputs. Unilateral thalamic lesions palced ipsilateral to MFB lesions in iether the ventral anterior-ventrolateral nuclei (VA-VL) or in the center median-parafascicular nuclei (CM-PF) prevent the MFB lesion-induced asymmetry in caudate neuronal firing rates. These thalamic lesions do not, however, restore the striatal dopamine content depleted by the MFB lesion. Unilateral CM-PF lesions in otherwise intact cats do not alter caudate unit firing rates nor do they affect striatal dopamine. VA-VL lesions in otherwise intact cats produce a bilateral slowing in the spontaneous firing of neurons in the caudate nuclei, again, whithout altering caudate dopamine concentrations. These results provide further evidence that caudate dopamine concentration per se does not appear to be a potent variable in controlling the spontaneous firing rates of striatal neurons.

Animals↗

Motor unit responses in the lateral rectus muscle of the cat: intracellular current injection of abducens nucleus neurons.

Single motor units of the cat's lateral rectus muscle were activated with short intracellular current pulses delivered through an intracellular micropipette penetrating a single motoneuron, and the mechanical responses in the muscle were recorded. Lateral rectus unit responses fell within the same range as those obtained earlier with extracellular stimulation of inferior oblique units, confirming that in the latter case single and not multiple motor units had been studied. It was also found that both fast and slow contracting muscle units were connected to fast conducting, large size motoneurons. The organization of motor unit recruitment in eye movements would thus seem different from the recruitment pattern in limb muscles. Intracellular stimulation of abducens nucleus "interneurons" did not initiate contractions at the ipsilateral lateral rectus muscle. These "interneuron", therefore did not appear to have excitatory inputs to the abducens motoneurons, but may be involved in relaying information to the other extraocular muscle nuclei or to other brain centers.

Abducens Nerve↗