de Moraes Eder Ricardo, Kushmerick Christopher, Naves Lígia Araujo
Departamento de Fisiologia, Centro de Ciências Biológicas e da Saúde, Universidade Federal de Sergipe, São Cristóvão, Sergipe, Brazil.
Departamento de Fisiologia e Biofísica, Instituto de Ciências Biológicas, Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais, Belo Horizonte, MG, Brazil.
Biophys Rev. 2017 Oct;9(5):847-856. doi: 10.1007/s12551-017-0321-3. Epub 2017 Sep 9.
First-order somatosensory neurons transduce and convey information about the external or internal environment of the body to the central nervous system. They are pseudo unipolar neurons with cell bodies residing in one of several ganglia located near the central nervous system, with the short branch of the axon connecting to the spinal cord or the brain stem and the long branch extending towards the peripheral organ they innervate. Besides their sensory transducer and conductive role, somatosensory neurons also have trophic functions in the tissue they innervate and participate in local reflexes in the periphery. The cell bodies of these neurons are remarkably diverse in terms of size, molecular constitution, and electrophysiological properties. These parameters have provided criteria for classification that have proved useful to establish and study their functions. In this review, we discuss ways to measure and classify populations of neurons based on their size and action potential firing pattern. We also discuss attempts to relate the different populations to specific sensory modalities.
一级体感神经元将有关身体外部或内部环境的信息进行转换并传递至中枢神经系统。它们是假单极神经元，其细胞体位于中枢神经系统附近的几个神经节之一中，轴突的短分支连接到脊髓或脑干，长分支则朝着它们所支配的外周器官延伸。除了其感觉转换和传导作用外，体感神经元在它们所支配的组织中还具有营养功能，并参与外周的局部反射。这些神经元的细胞体在大小、分子组成和电生理特性方面差异显著。这些参数提供了分类标准，已证明有助于确立和研究它们的功能。在本综述中，我们讨论基于神经元大小和动作电位发放模式来测量和分类神经元群体的方法。我们还讨论了将不同群体与特定感觉模态相关联的尝试。
