In vivo administration or in vitro application of dopamine or of dopamine receptor agonists induce vasodilatation in the cerebral, coronary, renal and mesenteric vascular beds and cause hypotension. Moreover, dopamine stimulates cardiac contractility and induces diuresis and natriuresis. Peripheral (cardiovascular and renal) dopamine receptors belong to the D1-like and D2-like receptor superfam...

The paper on nerve conduction studies (NCS) and current perception thresholds (CPT) in workers assessed for hand-arm vibration syndrome (HAVS) by Lander et al. [1] while informative contained several oversights about the CPT neurophysiological test that would bias any reader's interpretation of the findings. The standardized automated double-blind CPT evaluation provides a painless objective ne...

Two siblings are described with mutilating lesions of the feet and hands, with sensory disturbances and muscle amyotrophy. The motor and afferent nerve conduction velocities were at the lower limit of normal. The nerve action potentials disappeared, first with percutaneous stimulation of the fingers and later with more proximal direct nerve stimulation. Early in the course of the illness indole...

Abstract Introduction : Despite its central role in medicine electrical stimulation (ES) is still limited by selectivity. Different reports did assess effects of different waveforms, intensities, and frequency on the activation threshold nerve fibres with diameters. We aimed to extend this knowledge investigating effect short monophasic rectangular pulses (1, 2, 5, 10, 50, 100 200 μs) recruitme...

Since Gasser and Erlanger (3, 4) published their extensive experiments on the relationship between the conduction-rate and the diameter of the nerve fibre, there has been a large amount of work concerning this problem (Blair and Erlanger, 2; Zotter man, 15; Pumphrey and Young, 9; Hursh, 7; Gasser and Grundfest, 6 etc.). The method adopted by these investigators, except for Pumphrey and Young wh...

Through nearly 40 years of research nerve growth factor (NGF) has become a paradigm for neurotrophic factors. NGF is synthesized and released from innervated target tissues in limiting amounts, thereby regulating the cell number and the differentiated properties of responsive neurones. Three distinct cell types are responsive to NGF: peripheral sensory and sympathetic neurones and certain types...

Late and ultralate cerebral potentials in response to cutaneous heat (CO2 laser pulses) and electrical nerve stimuli were studied in a patient with hereditary motor and sensory neuropathy type I who showed severe impairment of myelinated nerve fibre function. Cerebral potentials in response to electrical stimuli were absent (tibial nerve) or small (median nerve). With the laser pulses applied t...

1. Intracellular recording techniques were used to study the effects of temperature on resting membrane conductances, electrical excitability and synaptic efficacy in fast-glycolytic (FG) skeletal muscle fibres from the lizard Dipsosaurus dorsalis. 2. The conductance of the resting muscle membrane to chloride ions (gci) increased from 488/iScm" at 15°C (pH7-8) to 730/iScm~ at 45°C (pH7-4), yiel...

Degeneration of motor terminals after nerve section occurs much more slowly than normal in young adult mice of the C57Bl/Wlds strain. This observation prompted us to re-examine the possible role of degeneration and intrinsic axon withdrawal during neonatal synapse elimination. Polyneuronal innervation was assayed by two methods: intracellular recording of end-plate potentials in cut-muscle fibr...

1 INTRODUCTION Nerve conduction studies (NCS) are one of the basic tools of the electrodiagnostic clinician and are performed in order to evaluate the integrity of peripheral nerve function. Using such techniques diagnosis of various diseases and disorders of nerve are possible. During NCS a peripheral nerve is stimulated using an electrical pulse of sufficient intensity to recruit as many nerv...