The interaction between two trains of impulses converging on the same motoneurone

It was shown in an earlier paper (7) that if maximal stimulation of either of two different afferent nerves can reflexly excite fractions of a given flexor muscle, there are generally, within the aggregate of neurones which innervate that muscle, motoneurones which can be caused to discharge by either afferent (i. e., motoneurones common to both fractions). The relationship which two such afferents bear to a common motoneurone was shown, by the isometric method of recording contraction, to be such that the activation of one afferent, at a speed sufficient to cause a maximal motor tetanus when trans­mitted to the muscle fibres, caused exclusion of any added mechanical effect when the other afferent was excited concurrently. This default in mechanical effect was called “occlusion.” Occlusion may conceivably be due to total exclusion of the effect of one afferent pathway on the common motoneurone by the activity of the other; but facilitation of the effect of one path by the activation of the other when the stimuli were minimal suggests that, in some circumstances at least, the effect of each could augment and summate with th at of the other at the place of convergence of two afferent pathways. Further investigation, using the action currents of the muscle as indication of the nerve impulses discharged by the motoneurone units, has now given some information regarding the effect of impulses arriving at the locus of convergence by one afferent path when the unit common to both is already discharging in response to impulses arriving by the other afferent path. Our method has been to excite both afferent nerves in overlapping sequence by series of break shocks at a rapid rate and to examine the action currents of the resulting reflex for evidence of the appearance of the rhythm of the second series in the discharge caused by the first when the two series are both reaching the motoneurone.