Journal
NEUROSCIENCE RESEARCH
Volume 75, Issue 2, Pages 150-156Publisher
ELSEVIER IRELAND LTD
DOI: 10.1016/j.neures.2012.11.008
Keywords
Barrington's nucleus; Pontine micturition center; Interneuron; Sacral preganglionic neuron; Bladder
Categories
Funding
- Ministry of Education, Science, Sports and Culture of Japan [17591703]
- Grants-in-Aid for Scientific Research [17591703] Funding Source: KAKEN
Ask authors/readers for more resources
The pontine micturition center, or Barrington's nucleus, is an essential component in the micturition reflex. The purpose of the present study is to examine the connections between Barrington's nucleus and sacral preganglionic neurons with an electrophysiological method using an intracellular recording technique. When the bladder pressure was near 0 mmH(2)O, electrical stimulation of Barrington's nucleus either evoked no postsynaptic potential or evoked very small excitatory postsynaptic potentials (EPSPs) with ambiguous onset, in sacral preganglionic neurons. However, when the bladder showed micturition contraction, electrical stimulation of the nucleus evoked clear EPSPs in sacral preganglionic neurons. Latencies of EPSPs ranged from 21.9 to 47.5 ms. The onset of the EPSPs was not fixed in any of the preganglionic neurons, indicating that they were evoked polysynaptically. The results thus demonstrated that the descending pathway from Barrington's nucleus to the sacral preganglionic neurons is polysynaptic. The results also showed that the descending pathway is strongly facilitated during the voiding phase, whereas this facilitatory effect is very weak when the bladder pressure is low. The study supports the idea that continuous firings of Barrington's nucleus are needed to activate the sacral preganglionic neurons that innervate the bladder muscle. (C) 2012 Elsevier Ireland Ltd and the Japan Neuroscience Society. All rights reserved.
Authors
I am an author on this paper
Click your name to claim this paper and add it to your profile.
Reviews
Recommended
No Data Available