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A pulmonary mechanosensory unit may contain heterogeneous encoders
Author(s) -
Yu Jerry
Publication year - 2006
Publication title -
the faseb journal
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.709
H-Index - 277
eISSN - 1530-6860
pISSN - 0892-6638
DOI - 10.1096/fasebj.20.4.a376-b
Subject(s) - deflation , inflation (cosmology) , sensory system , neuroscience , medicine , biology , physics , monetary economics , monetary policy , economics , theoretical physics
Some pulmonary mechanosensory units can respond to both lung inflation and deflation. Recently, it has been recognized that a single‐unit of slowly adapting receptors may contain multiple receptive fields and that each field houses at least one encoder. It is hypothesized that mechanosensory units that respond to both lung inflation and deflation contain heterogeneous encoders for these stimuli. The present studies test this hypothesis by recording single unit activities from the cervical vagus nerve in anesthetized, open chest, and mechanically ventilated rabbits. Fifty sensory units, which responded to both lung inflation and deflation, were identified. Among them, fifteen units had separate receptive fields for inflation and deflation, in which one of the fields could be blocked by local injection of 2% lidocaine (200 ul). In 10 of the 15 units, the deflation response was blocked without affecting the unit’s response to inflation, whereas in the remaining 5 units, the inflation response was blocked without affecting the deflation response. The current results support the conclusion that a single mechanosensory unit can contain heterogeneous encoders that can respond to either inflation or deflation. (supported by NIH HL‐58727)