| Abstract: | Analogue models of lumbar motoneurons of the monkey and cat were built on the basis of measurement of the electrical parameters of these cells and reproduction of the structure and dimensions of their body and dendrites stained intracellularly with procion yellow. Synaptic inputs were simulated by short-acting shunts activated at different points of the membrane. The way in which the amplitudinal and temporal course of the artificial EPSPs and their interaction and sensitivity to a polarizing current depended on the spatial localization of the corresponding inputs was investigated, revealing a correlation between the properties of the EPSP and the localization of its generator. Properties of the synaptic inputs were found to depend not only on their distance from the soma, but also on their arrangement on particular branches of the dendrites. Agreement between the results obtained in experiments on the analogue model and on actual motoneurons and the correlation between the electrophysiological, morphological, and model concepts are discussed.I. M. Sechenov Institute of Evolutionary Physiology and Biochemistry, Academy of Sciences of the USSR, Leningrad. Translated from Neirofiziologiya, Vol. 5, No. 3, pp. 289–297, May–June, 1973. |
