J. Sullivan et Dl. Macmillan, THE EFFECT OF ETHANOL ON THE STEADY-STATE ELECTRICAL-ACTIVITY OF AN INTERMITTENTLY STRETCHED MECHANORECEPTOR, Research communications in substance abuse, 15(1-2), 1994, pp. 21-32
The experiments reported here continue the development of the neurons
of the Muscle Receptor Organ (MRO) of the crayfish as a pharmacologica
l model for studying the effects of ethanol on the electrical activity
of isolated neurons. Previous work showed that ethanol caused a reduc
ed firing rate in statically stretched MRO neurons (Macmillan et al.,
1991) whereas it increased the firing during stretch episodes (Walsh e
t al., 1994). Its effect on the activity of fully adapted MRO neurons
between stretch episodes is unknown. We report here results showing th
at when ethanol (120mM) was applied to MRO neurons subjected tb a stai
rcase extension regime, the firing rate increased in the interpull int
ervals, even though the MRO neuron was allowed to adapt fully. The imp
lications of this for interpretations of the effect of ethanol on the
neuronal membrane and for further identification of the critical eleme
nts are discussed.