The generation of nerve and muscle repetivie activity in the rat phrenic nerve-diaphragm preparation following inhibition of cholinesterase by ecothiopate.

1 Simultaneous extracellular recordings were made from two end-plate zones of the isolated diaphragm and from the phrenic nerve of the rat in response to stimulation of the nerve. The contractions of the diaphragm were also recorded.2 In the curarized diaphragm, the introduction of ecothiopate, a non-competitive inhibitor of cholinesterase, caused a threefold increase in the amplitude of the end-plate current and an eightfold increase in the duration at half the peak amplitude.3 In the non-curarized diaphragm, the introduction of ecothiopate caused the generation of repetitive activity (RA) in first the phrenic nerve: this was then followed by RA in the diaphragm. At that stage, nerve RA possessed a shorter latency than muscle RA. The generation time for nerve RA was 1.6 ms and for mRA, it was 2.7 milliseconds.4 Nerve RA was more labile than muscle RA; it was readily abolished by increasing the frequency of stimulation, by magnesium, by tubocurarine or by high concentrations of ecothiopate, whereas muscle RA was still generated. Steady exposure to acetylcholine abolished both forms of RA.5 Two competitive inhibitors of cholinesterase, neostigmine and ambenonium, were also shown to evoke RA in nerve and muscle. The generation times for nerve RA and muscle RA were similar to those following ecothiopate.6 It was concluded that nerve RA and muscle RA were generated after the inhibition of cholinesterase by ecothiopate as a result of the prolonged action of acetylcholine upon cholinoceptive sites on the nerve terminal and motor endplate respectively. A direct excitatory action of ecothiopate upon the phrenic nerve terminals was excluded.