Search PubMedSearch

SEARCH · Search PubMed

Results for “Neural Conduction”

Search indexed PubMed citations on genomics, clinical trials, systematic reviews and public health. Explore titles, authors and supplied subject terms, then open the PubMed record.

Quote a phrase for an exact phrase match. Source license links do not imply unrestricted reuse.

At least 37 records · Page 2Linked to original sources

Early detection of diabetic visceral neuropathy. An electrophysiologic study of bladder and urethral innervation.

The segmental and supraspinal innervation of the detrusor muscle and periurethral striated musculature was studied in 27 patients with diabetes mellitus by gas cystometry, integrated sphincter electromyography, and spinal evoked-response latency measurements. Slowing of neural conduction velocities was a consistent finding in all the patients, even when cystometry did not show abnormalities. Thus, neuropathy in the segmental innervation of the bladder and urethra was documented.

Adolescent

Visual resolution in a patient exhibiting a visual fatigue or saturation-like effect: probable multiple sclerosis.

A rapid visual resolution test conducted on available equipment reveals the presence of rapid falloff in acuity in a case of probable multiple sclerosis. Intense large field illumination was used, and grating acuity was tested using laser red light. The effect is so large that minor anomalies (not subjectively appreciated) or the residuum of earlier minor attacks of retrobulbar optic neuritis can be readily detected. A related "visual fatigue or saturation-like syndrome" was described earlier. In bright environments these patients' vision fades. Briefly closing the eyes restores visual sensitivity. Providing filters or lowering the light level tends to maintain vision. This test must be studied intensively. It offers a noninvasive simple means of showing underlying anomalies in neural conduction of the visual signal. Such anomalies can be prognostic and previously have been revealed only with sophisticated electrophysiological techniques.

Adult

Auditory evoked brain stem potentials in a case of "locked-in" syndrome.

Auditory evoked brain stem potentials were measured in a patient with occlusion of the basilar artery about 7 mm above its origin, resulting in the "locked-in" syndrome due to infarction at the junction of the lower one third and upper two thirds of the pons. The first three waves of the evoked response originating from the acoustic nerve and auditory nuclei in the caudal pons were normal in wave form, peak latency, and voltage level. Waves IV and V, generated in the region of the lateral lemniscus and inferior colliculus in rostral pons and caudal midbrain, demonstrated prolonged peak latency and reduced voltage, indicative of slowed neural conduction in the pons above the level of the superior olivary complex. These findings suggest that auditory evoked potential recordings may have considerable value in the localization of brain stem disorders.

Acoustic Stimulation

Internuclear ophthalmoplegia. II. Pursuit, optokinetic nystagmus, and vestibulo-ocular reflex.

Smooth pursuit, optokinetic nystagmus (OKN) and the vestibulo-ocular reflex (VOR) were studied in four patients with internuclear ophthalmoplegia (two with bilateral and two with unilateral lesions). Horizontal smooth pursuit by an adducting eye on the side of a medial longitudinal fasciculus (MLF) lesion was normal in three of four patients; vertical pursuit was abnormal in all four. The horizontal VOR gain of slow components made by an adducting eye on the side of an MLF lesion was normal in all four patients. The vertical VOR gain was decreased in the two patients tested. It is concluded that either there are pathways independent of the MLF for horizontal pursuit and vestibular signals that are not available to vertical signals, or vertical pursuit and vestibular eye movements require a higher rate of oculomotor neuron firing than equal-velocity horizontal eye movements.

Adult

Dominant optic atrophy. The clinical profile.

We examined 24 individuals in four family pedigrees with dominantly inherited optic atrophy (DOA); 12 patients met the criteria for diagnosis of DOA and two were suspect. Our data indicate that (1) insidious onset usually occurred in childhood, but subjective visual symptoms may evolve in adulthood; (2) visual function was minimally (20/25) to moderately (20/400) abnormal, could be strikingly asymmetric in an individual (eg, 20/30 in the right eye and 20/200 in the left eye), and showed considerable intrafamilial and interfamilial variation; (3) visual field defects consisted of central and centrocecal scotomas, but no peripheral isopter abnormalities were found; (4) color-vision screening with Hardy-Rand-Rittler plates revealed dyschromotopsias, but only Farnsworth-Munsell 100-hue examination disclosed the typical tritan defects; (5) pattern-reversal visual-evoked responses were characterized by diminished amplitudes and prolonged latencies, consistent with neural conduction defects; (6) disc pallor was limited to the temporal segment in all cases, and 16 of 24 eyes showed focal temporal excavation, which is probably pathognomonic of DOA.

Adolescent

Central vestibular compensation. Effect of the bilateral labyrinthectomy on neural activity in the medial vestibular nucleus.

An attempt was made to reconstruct the central events that occurred in the various stages of vestibular compensation after a bilateral labyrinthectomy in the cat. Bilateral labyrinthectomized cats showed no nystagmus, but had unsteady head movements and wide gaits. Neural activity in both sides of the medial vestibular nuclei (MVN) was depressed during the critical stage of compensation; however, the neural activity was full and normal during the acute and compensated stage. The experimental results suggest that removing crossed inhibitory influence and reducing the cerebellar inhibitory influence by bilateral labyrinthectomy enhances the process of recovering neural activity in the vestibular nuclei during central compensation, and that the contralateral vestibular end organ is not a source of the driving force responsible for regeneration of electrical activity in the deafferented MVN after a unilateral labyrinthectomy.

Animals

Anatomical and physiological properties of ipsilaterally projecting spinothalamic neurons in the second cervical segment of the cat's spinal cord.

Anatomical and electrophysiological methods were used to investigate the projections and response properties of neurons in the second cervical (C2) spinal segment of the cat giving origin to a previously undescribed projection to the ipsilateral thalamus. The method of retrograde axonal transport of horseradish peroxidase (HRP) was used to identify neurons in C2 giving rise to thalamic projections. Following large (3.0 microliter) thalamic HRP injections, a large number of labeled neurons was observed in lateral laminae VII-VIII of C2 ipsilateral to the injections. They occurred as small clusters of cells along the longitudinal axis of C2. Labeled neurons were also observed contralaterally in the lateral cervical nucleus, dorsal horn (especially medial lamina VI), and loosely distributed in the ventral horn. The ipsilaterally projecting neurons were also labeled following small (0.2--0.5 microliter) HRP injections restricted to individual spinothalamic terminal zones (intralaminar nuclei, ventrobasal complex-nucleus ventralis lateralis border zone, medial division of the posterior nuclei), indicating that as a group they project widely throughout the thalamus. Single unit recording methods were used to obtain complementary information on the functional properties of these neurons. The antidromic stimulation method was applied to identify units in C2 projecting to the ipsilateral thalamus in anesthetized, paralyzed cats. Three categories of ipsilaterally projecting C2 units were identified: (1) units not driven by any type of natural stimulation; (2) units having large cutaneous receptive fields (RFs) and wide dynamic response ranges ("widefield"), and (3) units with smaller RFs and varied properties ("other"). Widefield units with bilaterally symmetrical and asymmetrical RFs were observed. Co-stimulation of different portions of an excitatory RF produced summation of the unit response. Inhibitory RF components were identified in one-third of the widefield units. Unit recordings after spinal tract lesions revealed that the afferent input passed via the ipsilateral lateral and/or ventral funiculi. Widefield unit responses to somatosensory stimuli could be inhibited by dorsal column conditioning stimulation. Several "other" units resembled widefield units, while a second group had small RFs restricted to the C2 dermatome. Possible functional roles of the projecting C2 neurons in somatosensory and non-specific systems are discussed.

Animals

Intracortical horizontal connections of neurons in cat and monkey motor cortex.

The present paper deals with the study of the structure of horizontal neuron chains, one of the aspects of intracortical intraneuronal relationships. The motor cortex (field 4) of cats and lower monkeys (Papio hamadryas and Macacus rhesus s. M. mullata) was treated by the impregnating method of Golgi--Kopsh. The drawings of neurons from 90-micrometer sections were made by means of a camera lucida. Three possible pathways of impulse transmission along neuron chains in a horizontal direction were revealed. These were: a pyramido-pyramidal system of connections which may possibly spread excitatory influence among several columns; a basket-pyramidal connection system; and connections which arise from successive switchings between neighboring neurons of one layer.

Animals

The identification of two inhibitory cells in each segmental ganglion of the leech and studies on the ionic mechanism of the inhibitory junctional potentials produced by these cells.

The present study identifies a pair of inhibitory cells that are located on each anterolateral margin of a leech segmental ganglion. These cells, which we label as cells 119, are electrically interconnected. These cells give rise to inhibitory junctional potentials (ijp's) in contralteral longitudinal body wall muscle cells. The latencies of the ijp's following spikes in cell 119 are variable. The ijp's are caused by transient increases in premeability to the Cl- ion. Previous studies demonstrated that 5-HT causes a hyperpolarization of body wall muscle cells by increasing the permeability of muscle membrane to the Cl- ion. Accordingly, 5-HT was searched for in the 119 cell bodies, but autoradiography, fine structure, and gas chromatography-mass spectrometry gave no indication that 5-HT was present in these cells. However, the variable latencies of the ijp's may indicate that there is a neuron interposed between cell 119 and the muscle cells. If this is the case, then the interposed neuron should be analyzed for 5-HT. Further experiments to locate the terminals of cells 119 and the cell bodies of the presumed interposed neurons are thus desirable.

Action Potentials

Functional development in the Mauthner cell system of embryos and larvae of the zebra fish.

In the embryonic zebra fish as early as 40 hr after fertilization, the Mauthner cells (M-cells) initiate an escape response, elicited by tactile-vibrational stimulation. The initial part of this behavior is similar to the acoustic startle reflex seen during the larval stage which begins at 96 hr. The embryonic response is directional and is followed by a series of strong tail flexures which are more pronounced than those during swimming. In the embryo the M-cell fired at the beginning of the response and rarely fired again during subsequent contractions; in our experiments the M-cell did not mediate iterative movements of the tail. The M-cell system is probably involved in evoked hatching behavior, as the tactile response is sufficient to rupture the egg membrane and allow the animal to escape. The M-cell sometimes fired spontaneously, which suggests that it might function also in spontaneous hatching behavior which occurs in the absence of phasic stimulation. At 48 hr the M-cell has morphologically mature synapses on its soma and dendrites, but its cytoplasm is relatively undifferentiated; it has few oriented neurofilaments and no distinct axon hillock. During these stages the extracellular M-spike is longer in duration and smaller in amplitude than at later times when the cell is more mature morphologically. Our data suggest that long-term inhibitory control of the M-cell system begins to function at about the time of hatching. At this time the cell is morphologically mature and is richly supplied with synaptic endings over its soma and dendrites.

Action Potentials

Effects of brain gangliosides on functional recovery in experimental regeneration and reinnervation.

The effect of brain cortex gangliosides has been tested in two different experimental models of peripheral sympathetic regeneration and reinnervation: a) the preganglionic trunks of the cervical sympathetic nerve were joined in an end-to-end anastomosis after severing the preganglionic trunk, caudally to the superior cervical ganglion; this reinnervation is mainly of cholinergic type. b) the postganglionic trunks of the superior cervical ganglion were joined in an end-to-end anastomosis after severing the postganglionic trunk; this reinnervation is mainly of adrenergic type. Functional recovery following the regeneration and reinnervation has been evaluated by measuring tha contraction of the nictitating membrane, evoked by electrical stimulation of the sympathetic trunk caudally to the point of anastomosis. Some of the operated animals were daily treated with 50mg/kg i.p. of brain cortex gangliosides during the entire post-operative period. Forty-five, sixty days after the operation we observed in the treated animals of both experimental sets a relevant increase in the functional recovery (between 30 and 100%) compared to the operated but untreated controls. In the case of postganglionic anastomosis the physio-pharmacological studies were substantiated by the histochemical fluorescence observations of the distributions of catecholamines in the smooth muscle of the nictitating membranes. These results strongly suggest that the treatment with gangliosides greatly influences the regeneration and reinnervation process of both cholinergic and adrenergic nerve fibers.

Animals

Spinal branching of corticospinal axons in the cat.

Branching patterns of single corticospinal (CS) neurons were studied in the cat by activating these neurons antidromically from various regions of the spinal cord. 1. One hundred and ninety-three neurons were activated antidromically by microstimulation in the gray substance of the cervical cord and the majority of them were found in the forelimb area of the pericruciate cortex. 2. Branches to the lower levels of the spinal cord were found for 30% of the neurons projecting to the cervical gray matter. 3. The remaining 70% sent axons only to the cervical gray matter and some of them sent multiple branches to several segments in the cervical cord. 4. Only a few CS neurons located outside of the forelimb area could be activated from the cervical cord, but all of them also sent branches to the lower levels of the spinal cord. Neurons projecting to both the cervical cord and the lower levels were intermingled in the cortex with those projecting only to the cervical cord. 5. CS neurons activated from a given area of the cervical cord were often clustered together in a small area of the cortex, although some of these CS neurons sent their other branches to other parts of the spinal cord and neurons projecting to other parts were also intermingled among them. 6. The functional significance of multiple axonal branching of CS neurons is discussed in relation to cortical motor functions.

Animals

The effect of morphine on the activity evoked in ventrolateral tract axons of the cat spinal cord.

The effect of morphine on the activity in ventrolateral tract axons was studied in intercollicularly decerebrate cats with and without spinal section. Activity was elicited by electrical stimulation of Adelta- and C-fibres in the sural nerves. In spinal animals, morphine injected intravenously in a dose as low as 0.5 mg/kg reduced the post-stimulus discharge of impulses recorded in ventrolateral tract axons below the site of transection. The depression was not only abolished but reversed by levallorphan and naloxone. Pretreatment with reserpine did not diminish the effect of morphine. The effect of morphine was considerably weaker in decerebrate cats. Reversible block of the spinal cord produced by cold revealed that morphine reduced inhibition from the brain stem controlling the impulse transmission to ventrolateral tract axons. It is concluded that a spinal effect contributes to the analgesic action of morphine.

Afferent Pathways

Excitatory nature of dopamine in the nigro-caudate pathway.

Inputs from the substantia nigra (SN) to the caudate nucleus (Cd) and the effects of electrophoretic dopamine on Cd neurones were studied in cats anaesthetized with pentobarbitone with intracellular techniques. Single shock electrical stimulation of the SN or the medial forebrain bundle (MFB) induced monosynaptic EPSPs in Cd neurones. Dopamine depolarized Cd neurones and chlorpromazine suppressed the SN or MFB induced EPSPs. Appropriate controls indicate that the drug effects were not artifactual. Some recorded neurones were identified by procion yellow dye injection as the medium-size intrinsic Cd neurones.

Animals

Auxiliary spinal networks for signal focussing in the segmental stretch reflex system.

In continuation of a previous paper, the auxiliary signal focussing properties of more complicated spinal neuronal networks are considered here. Special emphasis is put on the distributive function of the recurrent feedback system of alpha-motoneurones, but also the inhomogeneous distribution of excitatory and inhibitor input to motoneurones is taken into account as an essential prerequisite for signal focussing. Simple hypothetical calculations for steady-state conditions yield a more vivid insight into the interaction of the two types of neuronal circuitry contributing to signal focussing.

Feedback