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XXVII.—On the Restoration of Co-ordinated Movements after Nerve Section

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  06 July 2012

Robert Kennedy
Affiliation:
From the University of Glasgow and the Glasgow Veterinary College.

Extract

From the point of view of its function, a nerve fibre is a conductor of nervous impulses, and as such is the path of communication between two structures, the one situated in the central nervous system, and the other in the periphery. In the mixed nerve, such as the sciatic, the nerve fibres are distinguished as afferent or as efferent, according as they conduct impulses originating at the periphery, and received by a cell in the central nervous system, or vice versâ. It has long since been shown that nerve fibres are capable of conducting impulses in either direction, but normally, from their anatomical connections, the individual nerve fibres are conductors for impulses only in the one or in the other direction. This is proved by the Wallerian method of investigation, as on severance of the posterior spinal root distal to the ganglion only certain fibres degenerate and the conductivity of the nerve only for afferent impulses is lost, while the severance of the anterior root is followed by the degeneration of the remainder with loss of functions depending on efferent impulses.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Royal Society of Edinburgh 1900

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References

page 687 note * Phil Trans., Series B., vol. clxxxviii. (1897), p. 257.

page 688 note * I am indebted to Professor M'Kendrick for suggesting to me this form of experiment.

page 695 note * Ziegler's, Beiträge, 1893, vol. xiii. p. 160.Google Scholar

page 699 note * Loc. cit.

page 701 note * Archiv für Physiologie, 1885, S. 296.

page 701 note † Archiv für Physiologie, 1886, S. 488.

page 701 note ‡ American Journal of Physiology, vol. i., 1898, p. 239.