Different time courses of reduction in muscular potentials to moderate frequency stimulation in dystrophic and normal...

Muscular potentials were evoked by electrical stimulation of sciatic nerves and recorded from gastrocnemius muscles in dystrophic and normal mice. When frequency of stimulation was accelerated from 0.5 to 5 per sec and continued, the potentials were depressed to a notable extent in normal mice, whereas only a slight decrease or even an increase in them was observed in dystrophic mice. Thus, a simple method has been developed to differentiate pre- and/or postjunctional properties for impulse transmission in dystrophic mice from those in normal mice.