抄録
Muscle spindle is a strain gauge in skeletal muscles in vertebrates. The mechanism transducing from mechanical displacement of the sensory axon terminal to electrical afferent signals has been studied electrophysiologically using an air-gap method. However, mechanosensitive ion channels presumed on the sensory axon terminal membrane have not been characterized, because the diameter and length of the non-myelinated axon terminals are too thin (<0.1μm) and too long (>100μm) to study under patchor voltage-clamp condition. This review explores linkages between putative mechanosensitive channels and functional architecture in the processing of sensory information in frog muscle spindles.
