| Abstract: | Electrical properties of the membrane and sensitivity of the fibers to acetylcholine were investigated in the frog sartorius muscle after denervation and a single application of colchicine to the nerve. After both types of procedure the electrical properties showed similar changes and extrasynaptic sensitivity to acetylcholine appeared. No such changes took place in the fibers of the contralateral muscle. Injection of colchicine into the lymphatic sac did not affect the electrical properties of the membrane, but widened the zone of sensitivity to acetylcholine. The results are regarded as further evidence in support of the view that denervation-like changes after application of colchicine to the motor nerve, when the transmission of excitation of nerve to muscle is preserved, are the result of a disturbance of the supply of neurotrophic substances along the axon by means of axoplasmic transport.Kazan' Medical Institute. I. M. Sechenov Institute of Evolutionary Physiology and Biochemistry, Academy of Sciences of the USSR, Leningrad. Translated from Neirofiziologiya, Vol. 12, No. 5, pp. 550–557, September–October, 1980. |
