Discharge of cutaneous afferent fibers innervating tail during passive tail movements in cats.

Abstract

The discharge of cutaneous afferents innervating the tail were recorded from 145 single afferent fibers in 11 spinalized cats (conduction velocity: 32-58 m/s) during sinusoidal tail movements. Cutaneous afferent fibers were roughly classified into two groups, slowly-adapting (SA) and rapidly-adapting fibers (RA). The discharge patterns of afferent fibers during passive tail movements depended on the receptive field on tail skin. The results of the present experiments show that peripheral inputs from cutaneous afferent fibers sent various information regarding tail movement and position to central nervous systems.