Histochemical and physiological properties of cat motor units after self-and cross-reinnervation

1. This report describes selected histochemical and physiological properties of the motor units of adult cat soleus muscle approximately one year after self- and cross-reinnervation with the nerve of the heterogenous flexor hallucis longus (f.h.l.). Self-reinnervated f.h.l. motor units are also considered. Whole muscles were tested for fibre reaction to alkaline pre-incubated ATPase, alpha-glycerophosphate dehydrogenase (alpha-GPD) and reduced nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide diaphorase (NADH-D). Motor units were isolated and studied by splitting the ventral root in acute preparations.2. The histochemical fibre type profile in the self-reinnervated muscle was comparable to normal muscle as was mean twitch contraction time, twitch-tetanus ratio and fatigue index. The mean tetanic tension of the soleus self- and cross-reinnervated motor units appeared close to a normal soleus whereas the mean tetanic tension of the f.h.l. self-reinnervated units was significantly less than a normal f.h.l.3. An average of 14% of the fibres of the soleus cross-reinnervated muscles had high ATPase and a alpha-GPD staining intensity in contrast to normal and self-reinnervated soleus in which such fibres are absent. Thus alkaline lability of myofibrillar ATPase increased in some fibres of what was originally a homogeneous population. The small increase in the number of densely staining fibres for ATPase at an alkaline pH (14%) was associated with a 73% decrease in (mean) contraction time (41 +/- 11 ms) of the thirty-three cross-reinnervated muscle units studied, with no unit's contraction time greater than 60 ms. Mean contraction times for the self-reinnervated soleus and f.h.l. muscles were 78 +/- 31 ms and 27 +/- 8 ms respectively.4. All fibres of the soleus cross-reinnervated muscles showed intense reaction to NADH-D, as was true of self-reinnervated soleus. This staining pattern is typical of normal soleus. In concordance, these motor units consistently demonstrated a high resistance to fatigue when stimulated for a four-minute period.5. These results suggest that in the adult self-and cross-reinnervated soleus muscle, there is some active mechanism which regulates the eventual size of motor units as reflected by tetanic tension.6. Change in contraction time from that typical for a soleus unit to that similar to an f.h.l. unit remains incomplete one year after cross-reinnervation. Within this time this partial change in single motor units reflects incomplete neural control of this property rather than a mixture of self- and foreign-innervation.7. A greater degree of independence from neural control to conversion of the histochemically demonstrated myofibrillar ATPase activity exists than is the case for contraction time.