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Updated: Jan 22, 2026

In Vitro Recording of Mesenteric Afferent Nerve Activity in Mouse Jejunal and Colonic Segments
Published on: October 25, 2016
A new methodology to record from human primary afferents provides insight for somatosensory neuroprosthetics
1Department of Bioengineering, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
Abstract:
Muscle spindles are integral to proprioception and their behavior is of particular interest for the design of somatosensory neuroprostheses. Prior knowledge about human muscle spindles has been limited to microneurography recordings in peripheral nerves using joint movements that do not disrupt the electrode. Recent studies demonstrate a new methodology for studying the afferent encoding of proprioception during freestanding, providing important information for neural engineering and the broader scientific community (Knellwolf TP, Burton AR, Hammam E, Macefield VG. J Neurophysiol 120: 953-959, 2018; Knellwolf TP, Burton AR, Hammam E, Macefield VG. J Neurophysiol 121: 74-84, 2019; Macefield VG, Knellwolf TP. J Neurophysiol 120: 452-467, 2018).
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