Abstract
Static and dynamic discharge patterns of bursting cold fibers in the lingual nerve of the cat were analysed at temperatures between 10 and 40°C. The period of the static burst discharge depends only on temperature and is not affected by the number of spikes per burst. The termination of an intraburst sequence of impulses can be predicted by the duration of the intraburst intervals. Irregular impulse patterns at low static temperatures show a unimodal interval distribution, whereas the interval histograms from irregular spike sequences at high temperatures have multiple peaks with nearly equal distances. The dynamic responses to cooling steps of 5°C show a transient reduction of the burst period and a transient increase of the number of spikes per burst or the burst duration, respectively. In addition, the maximmum intraburst frequencies transiently increase while the frequency decay within the burst is continuously reduced. At low temperatures, the burst discharge is sometimes interrupted by a continuous impulse sequence of high frequency. A model of temperature transduction is discussed on the basis of membrane processes which are particularly described for molluscan neurons. The results support the hypothesis that the bursts are triggered by an endogenously oscillating receptor potential. It is assumed that at high temperatures the oscillation continues but certain cycles fail to trigger impulses. The results during dynamic cooling are interpreted as a flattening of the oscillation which is transiently superposed by a depolarizing shift of the potential waves.
Published Version
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