Synaptic efficacy of inhibitory synapses in the reinnervating hypoglossal motoneurons.

The synaptic efficacy of inhibitory synapses in tongue protruder motoneurons reinnervating the tongue retractor muscle was studied in cats. We have demonstrated that the percentage magnitude of a short- and a long-lasting inhibitory postsynaptic potential in the inhibitory postsynaptic potentials produced in the tongue protruder motoneurons, whose axons had been cut but allowed to regenerate to make functional contact with the tongue retractor muscles, by lingual nerve or inferior alveolar nerve stimulation, was rearranged to appear like that exhibited by the tongue retractor motoneurons that normally supply that muscle. In addition, the peak amplitude of the summated afterhyperpolarization in a tongue protruder motoneuron on operated cats at nine months axon-union was in the normal range.