introduction: effect of tripolar tens of vertebral column on slow and fast motoneurons (mns) activity of soleus muscle was previously investigated. in this study for better differentiation of the behavior of slow and fast mns, we exploited h-reflex recovery curve recording in two muscles of soleus and lateral gastrocnemius, respectively as the representatives of slow and fast muscles. methods: ...

Chest pain caused by myocardial ischemia is mediated by cardiac sympathetic afferents. Although silent nociceptors exist in somatic structures and some visceral organs, their presence in the heart remains uncertain. The present study examined the presence and the functional characteristics of mechanically insensitive cardiac sympathetic afferents using an electrical search technique. Single-uni...

Change in transmitting time of impulses along axons is traditionally attributed to two parameters: the myelin formation and the diameter of neurite, both rising during the postnatal development. In the previous study, we showed that conduction velocity of the fibers projecting from the thalamus to the layer IV of the somatosensory (barrel) cortex increases as a function of age. However, the con...

Myocardial ischemia activates cardiac spinal afferents that mediate chest pain and excitatory reflex cardiovascular responses. Platelets are activated during myocardial ischemia and release 5-hydroxytryptamine, which stimulates abdominal spinal afferents. This study investigated the role of activated platelets in excitation of cardiac spinal afferents during ischemia. Platelet-rich plasma (PRP)...

GABA-A receptors (GABA-ARs) are typically expressed at synaptic or nonsynaptic sites mediating phasic and tonic inhibition, respectively. These two forms of inhibition conjointly control various network oscillations. To disentangle their roles in thalamocortical rhythms, we focally deleted synaptic, γ2 subunit-containing GABA-ARs in the thalamus using viral intervention in mice. After successfu...

The brain's capacity to rewire is thought to diminish with age. It is widely believed that development stabilizes the synapses from thalamus to cortex and that adult experience alters only synaptic connections between cortical neurons. Here we show that thalamocortical (TC) inputs themselves undergo massive plasticity in adults. We combined whole-cell recording from individual thalamocortical n...

This paper presents a computational model of a thalamocortical (TC) relay neuron that is used to explore the behaviour of the basal-ganglia thalamocortical loop in relation to Parkinson’s disease and deep brain stimulation. Low frequency oscillations associated with Parkinson’s disease impair thalamic processing by generating rebound action potentials. In the model the thalamocortical cell rece...

Thalamocortical and corticothalamic pathways mediate bidirectional communication between the thalamus and neocortex. These pathways are entwined, making their study challenging. Here we used lentiviruses to express channelrhodopsin-2 (ChR2), a light-sensitive cation channel, in either thalamocortical or corticothalamic projection cells. Infection occurred only locally, but efferent axons and th...

To regain sensorimotor functions after stroke, surviving neural circuits must reorganize and form new connections. Although the thalamus is critical for processing and relaying sensory information to the cortex, little is known about how stroke affects the structure and function of these connections, or whether a therapeutic approach targeting these circuits can improve recovery. Here we reveal...

Thalamic relay neurons have well-characterized dual firing modes: bursting and tonic spiking. Studies in brain slices have led to a model in which rhythmic synchronized spiking (phasic firing) in a population of relay neurons leads to hyper-synchronous oscillatory cortico-thalamo-cortical rhythms that result in absence seizures. This model suggests that blocking thalamocortical phasic firing wo...