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Gamma-bias of the muscle poisoned by tetanus toxin

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Summary

  1. 1.

    Local tetanus in the right hind leg of the cat was caused by injecting tetanus toxin subcutaneously at the right triceps surae muscle. The left side, which showed no pathological symptoms, was used as control.

  2. 2.

    The muscles of both sides were stretched linearly at a very slow rate (0.02 to 0.2 mm/sec). We compared the electrical mass activity of the bundle from dorsal roots L7 and S1 in response to muscle stretch of the control and the pathological side.

  3. 3.

    Both before and during the linear stretching the afferent activity was stronger on the intoxicated than on the control side.

  4. 4.

    It is concluded that during local tetanus the rough pathological augmentation of the basis in the gamma system was about 10 mm or more, and that the change of the gamma bias in the intoxicated preparation is beyond the physiological range.

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The greater part of this study was performed at the Department of Physiology, Chiba University.

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Takano, K., Kano, M. Gamma-bias of the muscle poisoned by tetanus toxin. Naunyn-Schmiedeberg's Arch. Pharmacol. 276, 413–420 (1973). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00499894

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00499894

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