An electrophysiological and morphological study of normal and denervated chicken latissimus dorsi muscles

1. Some electrophysiological and morphological properties of 'fast' (singly innervated) and 'slow' (multiply innervated) muscle fibres were studied in normal and denervated posterior and anterior latissimus dorsi muscles of the young chickens. 2. Normal singly and multiply innervated muscle fibres are capable of generating action potentials which in all qualitative respects are similar. 3. The action potentials of multiply innervated muscle fibres are of lower amplitude and slower maximum rate of rise than action potentials in singly innervated muscle fibres. 4. Denervation causes the resting membrane potential and the maximum rate of rise of the action potential to fall. The changes are greater in singly innervated than in multiply innervated fibres, but in neither case are as great as in mammalian skeletal muscle fibres after surgical denervation. 5. In neither singly nor multiply innervated muscle fibres do the action potentials generate any 'resistance' to tetrodotoxin as a result of denervation. 6. The diameter of multiply innervated fibres is increased after denervation, but it is reduced in singly innervated fibres. The number of myofilaments increases in multiply innervated fibres, but decreases in single innervated fibres. In both types of muscle fibre the volume fraction of myofibrils is decreased. 7. In the singly innervated muscle fibres there is an increase in the volume fraction of mitochondria. 8. In the singly innervated muscle fibres, there is some rearrangement of the membrane systems in that some of the transversely orientated triads are replaced by longitudinally orientated dyads.