Phrenic nerve-diaphragm preparations in relation to temperature and hibernation

¹ Department of Physiology, University of Illinois College of Medicine, Chicago, Illinois

Electrical and mechanical properties, as correlates of incubation temperature, of phrenic nerve-diaphragm preparations obtained from hibernating and control hamsters and from rats were examined. Six incubation temperatures, ranging from 5° to 38°C, were used. Nerves of rats evidenced much steeper temperature functions than did either hamster group, with respect to irritability, spike voltage and conduction velocity such that they were inexcitable at 5°C. The hibernating and control hamster groups behaved quite similarly to each other in these respects. Neuromuscular blockade occurred at 10°C in the rat preparations and at 5°C of the control hamster preparations but in no case did it occur among those of hibernating animals. Similar or analogous differences were apparent in diaphragm muscle tissues insofar as irritability, tension production and rates of contraction and relaxation are concerned. These observations were taken to demonstrate the existence of phylogenetic adaptations correlated with the ability of hamsters to hibernate as well as the probable necessity for a prehibernal acclimatization of such mechanisms as neuromuscular transmission on the part of these animals.

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