Refractoriness of sural nerve in humans

High-frequency stimulation of peripheral nerve bundles is frequently used in clinical tests and physiologic experiments to study presynaptic and postsynaptic effects. To understand the postsynaptic effects, it is important to ensure that each pulse in the train is equally effective in stimulating the presynaptic nerve bundle; however, the optimal interpulse interval (IPI) and the stimulus intensity at which each pulse is equally effective in stimulating the same number of axons are not known. The magnitude of the compound action potential produced by each pulse in a train was tested on the sural nerve of 4 healthy human subjects. The stimulus train (2-4 pulses) was applied to the sural nerve at the lateral malleolus, and neural responses were recorded from just below the knee. With 2-pulse trains, families of curves between IPIs (1-6 ms) and normalized amplitudes of the second response were plotted for different stimulus intensities. Visual inspection of the data showed that the curves fell into 2 groups: with stimulus intensities <2.5x perception threshold (Th), the test response appeared partially at longer IPIs, whereas with stimulus intensities > or = 3x Th, partial recovery of the test response was earlier. The interval for complete recovery was statistically the same for low- and high-intensity stimulation. With more than 2 pulses in a stimulus train (IPI = 5 ms), the amplitude of the compound action potential (CAP) was not affected significantly. These results are important in understanding both the presynaptic and postsynaptic responses when presynaptic axon bundles are stimulated at high frequencies.