Citation: Piotrkiewicz M, Bawa PNS and Schmied A (2015) Mechanisms underlying firing in healthy and sick human motoneurons. In an address to the British Association for the Advancement of Science in Cambridge, Professor Sherrington introduced the terms " motor neurone " and " the final common path, " the latter term implying that all motor commands converge onto the motoneuron which integrates ...

We examined the massive early cell death that occurs in the ventral horn of the cervical spinal cord of the chick embryo between embryonic days 4 and 5 (E4 and E5). Studies with immunohistochemical, in situ hybridization, and retrograde-tracing methods revealed that many dying cells express Islet proteins and Lim-3 mRNA (motoneuron markers) and send their axons to the somatic region of the embr...

So far as the signaling pathways to -motoneurons ( -MNs) are concerned, the motoneuron level (MNL) of the spinal cord neural network system is composed of five types of neurons: The -MNs, the Ia inhibitory interneurons (Ia-INs), the Ia/Ib non-reciprocal interneurons (Ib-INs), the group II ventral horn interneurons (IIVH-INs), and the Renshaw cells (RCs). Perhaps the easiest way to explain the -...

Spinal motoneurons integrate a vast synaptic input and are the final conveyors of motor commands to skeletal muscle. Motoneuron regeneration includes altered contacts between the motoneuron and several other cell types. The severed axon elongates along Schwann cells in the nerve, while other types of glia interact closely with lesioned motoneurons in the spinal cord. Simultaneously, cell contac...

1. Cat sartorius has two distinct anatomical portions, anterior (SA-a) and medial (SA-m). SA-a acts to extend the knee and also to flex the hip. SA-m acts to flex both the knee and the hip. The objective of this study was to investigate how a "single motoneuron pool" is used to control at least three separate functions mediated by the two anatomical portions of one muscle. 2. Discharge patterns...

Background and Objective: Sciatic nerve transection is characterized by a rapid wave of motoneuron death associated with progressive synaptic lesions. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the long term synaptic changes. Materials and Methods: This basic study was carried out on paraffin- or resin-em...