Summary
Cats were injected intravenously with sublethal amounts of 125I-tetanus toxin and after 24 h the radioactivity was measured in the tissue probes.
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1.
In the sciatic nerve, the radioactivity increased in the centripetal direction.
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2.
On ligating the sciatic nerve, a stow of radioactivity was observed at the ligature.
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3.
On antidromic stimulation of the severed dorsal roots L6, L7, S1 the radio-activity in the sciatic nerve increased.
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4.
On ligating the sciatic nerve, the radioactivity in the ipsilateral spinal cord half segments was lower than in the contralateral half segments.
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Orthodromic and antidromic stimulation of the severed dorsal roots led to an increase in spinal cord radioactivity.
The results are discussed in terms of the hypothesis that in general tetanus a neural ascent of toxin contributes to an accumulation of toxin in the CNS, and that nerve activity is an important factor in the ascent.
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This work was supported by grant No. We 479/2 from the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft.
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Seib, U.C., Hensel, B., Wiegand, H. et al. Supporting evidence for a role of neural ascent of toxin in the pathogenesis of general tetanus in cats. Naunyn-Schmiedeberg's Arch. Pharmacol. 276, 403–411 (1973). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00499893
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00499893