[Reflex excitability of the spinal centers in patients with diffuse toxic goiter (concerning the pathogenesis of...

Reflex activity of the spinal cord motor centres was studied in patients with diffuse toxic goiter and in healthy persons. Methods of recording N- and M-responses of the soleus muscle were used. It was revealed that the number of motor neurons participating in the reflex reaction was changed; the restoratory cycle of the motor neuron pool was disturbed in double stimulation; inhibition of the H-reflex during the voluntary contraction of the antagonist muscle was diminished. The occuring disturbances were connected with the functional changes both of the segmental spinal cord apparatus and of the supersegmental formations. The extent and the direction of the detected disturbances are determined by the presence or the absence of affection of the mesodiencephalic formations on the patients under study and failed to depend on the severity of the disease.