Subject(s)
Electromyography , H-Reflex , Reflex, Monosynaptic , Synaptic Transmission , Adolescent , Adult , Electric Stimulation , Humans , Tibial Nerve/physiologyABSTRACT
Five pairs of chronic spinal rats were trained to lower a hind leg and then were tested for retention using a counter-balanced instrumental avoidance paradigm in which one animal served as the experimental and the other as a yoked control subject. An additional three pairs of rats were used in this paradigm after their lumbosacral spinal cords had been removed by aspiration. The results indicate that the chronic spinal rat is capable of instrumental avoidance conditioning when leg lowering is the response, and that the lumbosacral spinal cord is essential for this phenomenon.
Subject(s)
Avoidance Learning/physiology , Conditioning, Operant/physiology , Hindlimb/innervation , Motor Activity/physiology , Spinal Cord/physiology , Animals , Female , Muscle Contraction , Rats , Rats, Inbred Strains , Retention, Psychology/physiologySubject(s)
Colon, Sigmoid/physiology , Metoclopramide/pharmacology , Muscles/physiology , Aged , Colon, Sigmoid/drug effects , Electric Stimulation/methods , Electrodes, Implanted , Female , History, 16th Century , Humans , Male , Middle Aged , Muscle Contraction/drug effects , Muscle Tonus/drug effects , Muscles/drug effects , Myography , Sodium Chloride/pharmacologyABSTRACT
A randomized clinical trial of rotational manipulation was conducted on 95 patients with low back pain selected for (1) the absence of any contraindications for vertebral manipulation, (2) the absence of any psychosocial problems that might affect the outcome of treatment, (3) the absence of any previous experience with manipulative therapy, and (4) the presence of palpatory cues indicating that manipulation might be successful. Patients were randomly assigned to one of two groups: an experimental group receiving manipulation therapy and a control group receiving soft-tissue massage. Comparison of the two groups indicated that (1) patients who received manipulative treatment were much more likely to report immediate relief after the first treatment, and (2) at discharge, there was no significant difference between the two groups because both showed substantial improvement.
Subject(s)
Back Pain/therapy , Manipulation, Orthopedic , Adult , Clinical Trials as Topic , Female , Humans , Male , Random AllocationSubject(s)
Back Pain/physiopathology , H-Reflex , Reflex, Monosynaptic , Sciatica/physiopathology , Adult , Female , Humans , Male , Middle AgedABSTRACT
Electrical stimulation of the human posterior tibial nerve elicits two separate electromyographic responses. The shorter latency response results from electrical activation of motor axons and is termed the direct motor (M) response, while the longer latency response results from activation of stretch receptor afferents of the monosynaptic reflex arc and is termed the Hoffmann (H) reflex. At high stimulus intensities, the H reflex is either greatly reduced in size or completely extinguished, presumably by antidromic impulses elicited by stimulation of the motor nerve. In most subjects, a simple quantitative model appears to account for this extinction. In this model: (1) the M response is used to estimate the number of antidromic impulses; (2) the H reflex is used to estimate the number of orthodromic impulses which escape collision; (3) the maximum size of the M response is used to indicate the size of the motoneuron pool; and (4) it is assumed that antidromic impulses collide in a random fashion with orthodromic impulses in the motor nerve.
Subject(s)
Peripheral Nerves/physiology , Reflex, Monosynaptic , Spinal Cord/physiology , Electromyography , Humans , Mechanoreceptors/physiology , Models, Neurological , Motor Neurons/physiology , Reaction Time/physiologyABSTRACT
Manipulation has been widely used for the treatment of back disorders for centuries. However, until recently, randomized clinical trials have not been used to study the effectiveness of the various forms of manipulation. A review of recently published clinical trials indicates that manipulation is probably superior to certain control or sham treatments. This review also indicates that further randomized clinical trials are desirable and suggests the features that will be necessary in future trials of manipulation.
Subject(s)
Back Pain/therapy , Manipulation, Orthopedic , Diathermy , Humans , Massage , Outcome and Process Assessment, Health Care , Physical Therapy ModalitiesABSTRACT
Spinal rats exposed to an instrumental avoidance routine in a counterbalanced Horridge paradigm were able to achieve successively higher criteria. Both experimental and yoked control animals were capable of instrumental avoidance conditioning to incremental criteria; experimental animals exhibited retention of the task when tested. During acquisition, naive experimental animals were superior in performance to previous control animals. Due to the use of a counterbalanced Horridge paradigm, the effectsof sensitization and response variability are probably not sufficient to explain all of the results of this experiment. The data suggest that both graded acquisition and retention occur at the spinal level.
Subject(s)
Avoidance Learning/physiology , Conditioning, Operant/physiology , Spinal Cord/physiology , Animals , Female , Individuality , Rats , Time FactorsSubject(s)
Avoidance Learning/physiology , Conditioning, Operant/physiology , Spinal Cord/physiology , Vertebrates/physiology , Amphibians/physiology , Animals , Association Learning/physiology , Avoidance Learning/drug effects , Functional Laterality , Proteins/metabolism , Puromycin/pharmacology , Retention, Psychology/physiology , Species Specificity , Transfer, PsychologyABSTRACT
Eight pairs of spinal rats were exposed to an instrumental conditioning paradigm in which one animal served as the experimental and the other as a yoked control animal. An electrode, inserted into the experimental animal's foot, contacted an aqueous solution delivering shock to both animals. Leg flexion terminated the shock. Following two consecutive min without shock, the experimental animal's solution was raised an additional millimeter and training was re-instated. This procedure was repeated 4 times, or until the experimental animal failed to reach the 2 min criterion. In Run 1, one leg was trained; during Run 2, the contralateral leg was used. In addition, the animal which served as the experimental in Run 1 served as the yoked control in Run 2 and vice versa. The results indicate that the spinal rat is capable of acquiring successively higher criteria in an instrumental conditioning routine. In conjunction with previous results, these findings suggest that instrumental avoidance learning can occur in the spinal cord.
