CHARACTERISTICS OF RESPONSES FROM ELECTROGENIC TISSUE IN ELECTROPHORUS ELECTRICUS

Abstract

Reflex discharges of the electric organ may be elicited by mechanical stimulation of skin, vestibular organs, etc. Strong electrical excitation of the spinal cord, brain, or electric nerves will also evoke responses, and the electrogenic tissue itself will react to large currents flowing in the antero-posterior direction at right angles to the plate. Normal discharge has a central or precentral origin within the organ, and a velocity of conduction of the discharge as it invades the organ that is too rapid to be accounted for by the conduction velocities in peripheral nerves, spinal cord or electric nerves. Some factor accounting for an acceleration of the recruitment of units within the organ results both in the high velocity of the invading discharge wave front and the great synchrony of the components of the organ. The physiological explanation for this might a priori have its origin either in some central organization of nervous discharges to reach the organ simultaneously or in some peripheral mechanism in which the electrical field would be considered to play the main role.