A comparison of the spindles in two different muscles of the frog

1. The responses of spindles in the iliofibularis muscle of frogs to stretch during either small motor nerve fibre stimulation or the application of suxamethonium were compared.2. All spindles which were excited by small motor nerve fibre stimulation were also excited by suxamethonium, and their responses to these two methods of excitation were very similar. The drug dose was usually 5-10 mug/ml. but smaller and larger doses were effective. Large doses (> 100 mug/ml.) could sometimes lead to a reversible partial block of the spindle response to stretch.3. Suxamethonium also caused a prolonged contraction in extrafusal slow muscle fibres. This contraction was not responsible for the effect on the spindle, because the time course of its action on the muscle tension and on the spindle afferent was different.4. It was concluded that suxamethonium stimulated prolonged contraction in the small intrafusal muscle fibres, which are known to be innervated by the small motor nerve fibres.5. Only about half of the spindles in the iliofibularis muscle were excited by suxamethonium.6. In the sartorius muscle which has no slow extrafusal muscle fibres, no spindles were found to be excited by suxamethonium in the way characteristic of that due to small intrafusal muscle fibre contraction.7. It is concluded that, in frog muscles which have no slow extrafusal fibres, the muscle spindles do not have small intrafusal muscle fibres of the kind found in the iliofibularis muscle.