Neurobiological mechanisms of the meridian and the propagation of needle feeling along the meridian pathway

摘要

The present experiments attempt to find the meridian phenomenon and how the needle feeling propagates along the given meridian channels. The neuiobiological mechanisms of the meridian were studied with neutoelectrical recording from the motor neuronsand CB-HRP retrograde histochemistry technique in both rats and cats. The results demonstrated that most, but not all, of alpha motor neurons supplying a muscle group of a given meridian were selectively activated by afferent inputs originating not onlyfrom homonymous or heterogeneous, but synergistic muscle, but also from the skin nerve overlying the muscle group of the homonymous meridian. However, the afferent inputs from the heterogeneous meridian have very weak or no effect. On the other hand, thelabeled motor neurons supplying a given meridian muscles form a discrete longitudinal column with a definite bound in the lateral ventral horn. There are oriented dendro-dendristes projections between the labeled motor neurons. The characteristics of both selective responses of the motor neurons to afferent inputs and their neuro-anatomical arrangements in spinal cord offer neurobiological evidence for the meridian phenomenon.