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Motor responses to paired stimulation of giant interneurons in the cockroachPeriplaneta americana

I. The dorsal giant interneurons

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Summary

  1. 1.

    Dorsal giant interneurons (GIs) of the cockroach were stimulated intracellularly alone and in pairs, while activity in levator and depressor motor neurons of one metathoracic leg was recorded extracellularly.

  2. 2.

    Paired stimulation of GI-6 (which excites primarily levators) and ipsilateral GI-7 (which excites both levators and depressors) resulted in a stronger levator response than that recorded when either GI was stimulated alone (Figs. 3, 4).

  3. 3.

    Paired stimulation of GI-5 (which excites primarily depressors) and ipsilateral GI-7 resulted in a stronger depressor response than that recorded when either GI was stimulated alone (Fig. 7).

  4. 4.

    Paired stimulation of GI-5 exciting depressors and ipsilateral GI-6 exciting levators resulted in increased activity in either levators or depressors, depending on the individual animal. The muscle group whose activity increased was constant in any given preparation but varied from animal to animal (Fig. 9).

  5. 5.

    Delayed stimulation of one GI in paired trials uncovered no inhibition during the first part of the GI stimulus train (Fig. 10).

  6. 6.

    Contralateral dorsal GIs and non-giant interneurons can also sum with dorsal GIs to elicit stronger motor outputs (Fig. 11).

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Abbreviations

GI :

giant interneuron

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A preliminary account of this work has been published (Ritzmann 1979)

We thank Ms. MaryLu Voytko and Mr. Matthew Levin for technical assistance and Drs. J.M. Camhi, C.R. Fourtner, N.B. Rushforth, J. Westin and Ms. M. Tobias for critically reading the manuscript. This research was supported by NSF Grant BNS78-06192 to R.E.R.

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Ritzmann, R.E., Pollack, A.J. Motor responses to paired stimulation of giant interneurons in the cockroachPeriplaneta americana . J. Comp. Physiol. 143, 61–70 (1981). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00606069

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