Tetraethylammonium-induced contractions of frog's skeletal muscle. II. Effects on intramuscular nerve endings.

Abstract

By recording simultaneously from muscle fibers and from the ventral root supplying the muscle, it was found that low concentrations of tetraethylammonium (TEA) caused the muscle fibers to fire without antidromic impulses being conducted to the ventral root. Exposing the muscles to higher TEA concentrations induced action potential firing in both the muscle and the ventral root. d-Tubocurarine prevented the muscle fiber activity but did not modify the ventral root firing. The application of a single supramaximal electrical stimulus to the sciatic nerve resulted in an afterdischarge of the muscle fibers either alone or simultaneous with an afterdischarge of fibers in the ventral root. By recording from fine intramuscular motor nerve fibers with extracellular glass capillary microelectrodes while simultaneously recording from the ventral root, it was demonstrated that TEA could cause these fine intramuscular motor nerve fibers to fire without the activity being conducted antidromically to the ventral root. A consideration of the patterns of TEA-induced electrical activity and afterdischarging led to the suggestion that TEA causes these effects by displacing calcium from binding sites on the motor nerve endings, making the latter hyperexcitable and unstable and thereby causing afterdischarging and 'spontaneous' activity.