Abstract
Summary
The retracted motor nerve plates with wide, short projections were related to coarse, widely spaced cross striations, whereas expanded nerve plates with thin, elongated and moniliform processes were longer and separated by wider meshes than the retracted ones. 60% of the expanded motor nerve plates in the intercostal muscle accelerated in the transmission rate of the nervous impulses by carbon dioxide became twice the size of the relatively normal plates. Their processes were longer and separated by wider meshes than those of the normal controls. This morphologic expansion and extension of the processes of the plate by the proposed ameboid motion under the stimulus of the demand of increased functional activity evidently favors the transmission of the nerve impulse to the receptive muscle substance by increase of the surface area of the motor nerve plate. The differences in the histologic structure of motor nerve plates and muscle cross striations may be arranged in a graded series and are evidently determined by the active and inactive fibers in the fractional contraction of the same muscle. These structural changes favor the chemical theory of impulse transmission.
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