[Pattern stimulation and salivary secretion (author's transl)].

Experiments were carried out to investigate the effect of temporal stimulus pattern of chorda or sympathetic stimulation on salivary secretion of the rabbit or the dog. Stimulation of short or long period was adopted. The latency and the velocity of secretion were recorded. The amount of secretion increased with the increase of the number of stimuli within moderate range. The optimum interval of chorda stimulation was about 50 msec, but it was somewhat longer for shorter period of stimulation. Various patterns of stimulation were adopted (1) by varying the interval, the number of stimuli and the period of stimulation, (2) by changing stepwise the interval halfway through stimulation and (3) by intermittent stimulation. Experiments on the effect of sympathetic stimulation were also reported. Fitness of Michaelis-Menten's equation for the relationship between the number of stimuli and the amount of secretion was tested. Moreover, the other equation that described this relation satisfactorily was derived from the hypothesis of superposition of unitary processes. It is suggested that the response of a excitable tissue to repetitive stimuli, if it be pattern sensitive, can not be predicted only from the intensity, the frequency and the number of stimuli without considering their temporal configuration.