Action currents in single afferent nerve fibres elicited by stimulation of the skin of the toad and the cat.

Abstract

conclusions. With this technique it is easy to record sensory discharges in single nerve fibres which develop overwhelmingly large action potentials or in fibres with especially low threshold for sensory stimuli. It is, however, extremely difficult to explore the behaviour of nerve endings which on stimulation give rise to a limited number of small action potentials, because the discharges in these fibres may be completely masked by those in other predominant fibres. This and other defects of the technique can undoubtedly be circumvented by using a single isolated fibre of the desired size for the experiments. Since 1942 one of. us (LT.), in collaboration with several co-workers who changed from time to time, has devoted much effort to exploring the physiological properties of various sensory nerve endings with the single fibre technique. By means of the experimental set-up we are using now, it is possible to observe afferent impulses in a single nerve fibre, either myelinated