Gm. Murray et al., THE EFFECTS OF NEONATAL MEDIAN NERVE INJURY ON THE RESPONSIVENESS OF TACTILE NEURONS WITHIN THE CUNEATE NUCLEUS OF THE CAT, Journal of physiology, 505(3), 1997, pp. 759-768
1. The capacity of cuneate neurones to attain normal functional proper
ties following neonatal median nerve injury was investigated with sing
le neurone recording in anaesthetized cats, 12-24 months subsequent to
a controlled crush injury. Effectiveness of the Peripheral nerve inju
ry was confirmed by the abolition of the median nerve compound action
potential following the crush. 2. Cuneate recording was carried out af
ter denervation of the forearm, apart from the median nerve, to ensure
that neurones studied had receptive fields within the distribution zo
ne of the regenerated median nerve. Controlled and reproducible tactil
e stimuli were used to evaluate the functional capacities of neurones
to determine whether they were consistent with those reported earlier
for cuneate neurones in cats that had normal peripheral nerve developm
ent. 3. Twenty-two cuneate neurones with well-defined tactile receptiv
e fields within the distribution zone of the regenerated median nerve
were classified according to their adaptation characteristics and func
tional properties. Slowly adapting: neurones responded throughout stat
ic skin indentations and had graded and approximately linear stimulus-
response relations over indentation ranges up to 1.5 mm. Rapidly adapt
ing neurones responded to the dynamic phases of skin indentations and
could be divided into two broad classes, one most sensitive to vibrota
ctile stimuli at 200-400 Hz which appeared to receive a predominant in
put from Pacinian corpuscle receptors, and a non-Pacinian group that i
ncluded neurones most sensitive to skin vibration at 5-50 Hz which app
eared to receive glabrous skin input from the rapidly adapting class o
f afferent fibres. 4. Based on the stimulus-response relations and on
measures of phase locking in the responses to vibrotactile stimuli, it
appears that the functional properties of cuneate neurones activated
from the field of a regenerated median nerve subsequent to a neonatal
nerve crush injury were consistent with those reported previously for
'control' cuneate neurones. The results indicate that cuneate neurones
can acquire normal tactile coding capacities despite the disruption c
aused by prior crush injury to their peripheral nerve source.