Cutaneous receptive field and morphological properties of hamstring flexor alpha-motoneurones in the rat.

Intracellular recordings have been made from twenty antidromically identified posterior biceps femoris/semitendinosus (p.b.s.t.) hamstring flexor alpha-motoneurones in the decerebrate-spinal rat. The hamstring motoneurones had either low or no spontaneous background activity. In nineteen of the twenty cells high-frequency phasic responses could be elicited by stimulation of the ipsilateral hind paw with firm pressure or pinch. There was no response to light touch or brush. Contralateral cutaneous mechanoreceptive fields with higher thresholds and weaker responses were present in 70% of the motoneurones. Noxious heating of the ipsilateral hind paw produced excitatory responses in six of eight cells tested and two of these cells also responded to heating of the contralateral hind paw. Stimulation of the ipsilateral sural nerve at graded strengths that successively activated A beta, A delta and C afferents produced excitatory post-synaptic potentials (e.p.s.p.s) at progressively longer latencies in the motoneurones. The C-fibre induced e.p.s.p. lasted up to 200 ms. Horseradish peroxidase was injected into ten motoneurones and in seven cases full reconstructions of dendritic field, cell body and axon could be made. In agreement with previous reports from studies in the cat, the dendritic fields of rat motoneurones are very extensive in the rostrocaudal, mediolateral and dorsoventral planes. The general pattern of dendritic branching for each motoneurone in this functionally homogeneous population was uniformly organized. Three major spatial orientations were always present: a rostrocaudally restricted series of dendrites emerging from the cell body and directed dorsolaterally towards the dorsolateral funiculus with branches in the lateral dorsal horn, a laterally, and a ventromedially directed series of branches arranged obliquely in the ventral horn, both of which were distributed rostrocaudally for equal distances from the cell body. Many of these dendritic branches terminated within the lateral and ventral white columns. Although the sizes of the rat flexor motoneurones' somas (51 +/- 4.9 micron, S.E., n = 10) were similar to those of cat lumbosacral alpha-motoneurones, the tip-to-tip rostrocaudal extent of their dendritic fields (1130 +/- 34 micron, S.E., n = 7) was half that reported in the cat. These results are discussed in terms of the organization of the cutaneous flexor withdrawal reflex in the rat.