| Abstract: | The structure of connections between lumbar motoneurons was investigated in preparations of spinal cord isolated from young rats. This involved applying horseradish peroxidase to the ventral root and intracellular injection of the same enzyme into motoneurons. The possibility of dendro-dendritic, dendro-somatic, and somato-somatic contacts between motoneurons was shown up in light mocroscopy studies. Recurrent collaterals of motor axons were revealed and they are though to form contacts with dendrites and perikarya of the motoneurons. The findings obtained from morphological experiments are discussed in the light of data from electrophysiological analysis of motoneuronal postsynaptic potentials produced by ventral root stimulation.I. M. Sechenov Institute of Evolutionary Physiology and Biochemistry, Academy of Sciences of the USSR, Leningrad. Translated from Neirofiziologiya, Vol. 20, No. 3, pp. 340–350, May–June, 1988. |
