Relationship between Collateral Morphology in C1 Spinal Cord and Spatial
Properties of Medial Vestibulospinal Tract Neurons in the Cat.
S.I. Perlmutter, Y. Iwamoto, L.F. Barke, J.F. Baker, B.W. PetersonA.
Department of Physiology, Northwestern University School of Medicine, 303
E. Chicago Ave., Chicago, IL 60611.
APStracts 4:226N, 1997.
ABSTRACT
Twenty-one secondary medial vestibulospinal tract neurons were recorded
intraaxonally in the ventromedial funiculi of the C1 spinal cord in
decerebrate, paralyzed cats. Antidromic stimulation in C6 and the oculomotor
nucleus identified the projection pattern of each neuron. Responses to
sinusoidal, whole-body rotations in many planes in three-dimensional space
were characterized prior to injection of horseradish peroxidase or
Neurobiotin. The spatial response properties of 19 neurons were described by a
maximum activation direction vector (MAD), which defines the axis and
direction of rotation which maximally excite the neuron. The other two neurons
had spatio-temporal convergent behavior and no MAD was calculated. Collateral
morphologies were reconstructed from serial frontal sections to reveal
terminal fields in the C1 gray matter.
Received 17 June 1996; accepted in final form 4 September 1997.
APS Manuscript Number J482-6.
Article publication pending J. Neurophysiol.
ISSN 1080-4757 Copyright 1997 The American Physiological Society.
Published in APStracts on 7 October 1997