The activation of primary afferent neurons that innervate the airways leads to homeostatic and defensive reflexes. The anatomic and physiologic characteristics of these afferent fibers do not appear to be static properties but rather appear to change rapidly in response to inflammation. The threshold for activation of airway afferent neurons to various stimuli, for example, is not fixed; these ...

The objective of the present study was to investigate the involvement of afferent feedback in the generation of plantar flexor muscle activity during human walking. Healthy subjects walked on a treadmill with the left leg attached to a portable stretching device. Changes in the soleus (SOL) background EMG were analyzed following slow, small amplitude, dorsiflexion perturbations applied to the a...

Retinal afferent ingrowth to embryonic neural transplants in the adult rat superior colliculus may represent either sprouting of intact axons or the regeneration of transected axons. If ingrowth represents regeneration of damaged retinofugal axons, then lesions that axotomize more retinofugal axons at the transplantation site should induce greater retinal afferent ingrowth. Alternately, if ingr...

In this study, the mechanism involved in the initiation of voiding was investigated. Bladder pressure and bladder and urethral nerve activity were recorded in the anesthetized rat. Bladder nerve activity was resolved into afferent and efferent activity by means of a theoretical model. The beginning of an active bladder contraction was defined as the onset of bladder efferent firing at a certain...

INTRODUCTION Malignant afferent loop obstruction following pancreaticoduodenectomy is a rare complication and may be fatal if suppurative cholangitis or obstructive jaundice develops. Effective and safe therapeutic strategies for malignant afferent loop obstruction following pancreaticoduodenectomy are scarce at present. CASE PRESENTATION A 51-year-old Japanese man underwent pancreaticoduoden...

Stretch-sensitive afferents comprise ∼33% of the pelvic nerve innervation of mouse colorectum, which are activated by colorectal distension and encode visceral nociception. Stretch-sensitive colorectal afferent endings respond tonically to stepped or ramped colorectal stretch, whereas dissociated colorectal dorsal root ganglion neurons generally fail to spike repetitively upon stepped current s...

In this review, our recent studies using anesthetized animals concerning the neural mechanisms of vasodilative effect of acupuncture-like stimulation in various organs are briefly summarized. Responses of cortical cerebral blood flow and uterine blood flow are characterized as non-segmental and segmental reflexes. Among acupuncture-like stimuli delivered to five different segmental areas of the...

Experiments were performed to test the hypothesis that the impact of endogenous nitric oxide (NO) on ANG II-induced renal arteriolar constriction is reduced in rats with insulin-dependent diabetes mellitus (65 mg/kg streptozotocin; STZ). Arteriolar diameter responses to exogenous ANG II were quantified before and during NO synthase inhibition (100 microM N(omega)-nitro-L-arginine; L-NNA) by usi...

Aims: To investigate whether intravesical lower pH induces a micturition threshold reflex change of anaesthetized rats. Methods: Thirteen female rats, anaesthetized by α-chloralose and paralyzed by pancurone bromide were used for the experiments. The micturition threshold volume was determined by repeated cystometry. Simultaneously bladder afferent activities in four and efferent activities in ...

We assessed the responsiveness of rat juxtamedullary afferent arterioles to purinergic stimulation using the in vitro blood-perfused juxtamedullary nephron technique combined with videomicroscopy to allow direct measurement of arteriolar inside diameter. To minimize the contribution of endogenously formed angiotensin II, all rats were pretreated with enalaprilat (2 mg i.v.) for 30 minutes befor...