Effects of antidromic discharges in crayfish primary afferents

Contrary to orthodromic spikes that are generated in sensory organs and conveyed to CNS, antidromic spikes are generated in the axon terminals of the sensory neurons within the CNS and are conveyed to the peripheral sensory organ. Antidromic discharges are observed in primary afferent neurons of both vertebrates and invertebrates and seem to be related to the rhythmic activity of central neural networks. In this study, we analyzed the effect of antidromic discharges on the sensory activity of a leg proprioceptor in in vitro preparations of the crayfish CNS. Intracellular microelectrodes were used both to record the orthodromic spikes and to elicit antidromic spikes by injecting squares pulses of depolarizing current at various frequencies. Experiments were performed on the three types of identified sensory afferents (tonic, phasotonic, and phasic). The main results showed a reduction of the firing frequency of the orthodromic activity in 82% of the tested afferents. In tonic afferents, during their occurrences and according to their frequency, antidromic spikes or bursts reduced or suppressed the orthodromic activity. Following their terminations, they also induced a silent period and a gradual recovery of the orthodromic activity, both of which increased as the duration and the frequency of the antidromic bursts increased. In phasotonic and phasic afferents, antidromic bursts reduced or suppressed the phasic responses as their frequency and durations increased. In phasotonic afferents, if elicited prior to the movements, long-duration bursts with increasing frequency reduced more rapidly the tonic background activity than the phasic one whereas short-duration bursts at high frequency produced strong decreases of both. The effect of antidromic bursts accumulated when they are repetitively elicited. Antidromic bursts induced a much larger decrease of the sensory activity than adaptation alone. The occurrences of antidromic spikes or bursts may have a functional role in modulating the incoming sensory messages during locomotion. The mechanisms by which antidromic spikes modulate the firing sensitivity of the primary afferents may well lie in modifications of the properties of either mecanotransduction and/or spike initiation.