A recent study has demonstrated that many cytosolic proteins travel in mammalian axons using a similar slow motor dependent transport (Scott et al., 2011).
As the serotonergic raphespinal tract contributes to motor function, we assessed regrowth of descending serotonergic raphespinal tract axons using anti-5-hydroxytryptamine (anti-5-HT) immunostaining at 6 weeks after SCI.
Using MEMFIT, sodium currents of motor axons were modeled using the voltage clamp data of Schwarz and colleagues [13].
Quantification of fluorescence intensities along electroporated motor axons was performed using a home-made ImageJ plugin.
To test whether these Nav channels were already functional (i.e., able to generate spikes) at these early stages of Nav expression and motor axon development, we used whole-cell patch-clamp recordings, in the current-clamp configuration, of MNs at E12.5, i.e., 24 h after the emergence of Nav protein expression.
The znp-1 mouse monoclonal antibody (1 400) was used to label motor axons, and mouse anti-islet-1 to identify neuronal cell bodies (both from DSHB, University of Iowa, USA).
In several types of animals, muscle cells use membrane extensions to contact motor axons during development.
MUNE is a procedure used to evaluate the number of motor axons connected to a muscle.
We also used the Hb9-EGFP transgene to visualize spinal motor axons, including the phrenic nerve, and the motor component of a subset of cranial nerves (Wichterle et al., 2002; Huettl and Huber, 2011).
Objectives: To calculate conduction velocities (CV) of single motor axons innervating hand, forearm and leg muscles, weak anodal electrical transcranial stimuli were used and single motor unit potentials were recorded in 17 normal subjects.
