[Postnatal development of central motor pathways. An electrophysiological study].
The percutaneous electrical stimulation of the brain and spinal cord has been used to study the central motor pathways in 19 healthy full-term newborns and in 19 infants. The evoked compound muscle action potential were recorded by bipolar surface electrodes fixed on the skin overlying the thenar eminence muscles and the tibialis anterior muscle. In full-term newborns, the responses of lower limb muscles to cortical stimulation are more difficult to obtain that those of upper limb muscles. At birth, the conduction velocity of central motor fibres along the spinal cord are around 10 m/s, 4 or 5 times lower that the lowest values published for adult subjects. Thus, as has been demonstrated in animals, there seems to exist in man a very clear dissociation between myelination of central motor pathways and that of peripheral motor fibres.
Khater-Boidin
J
J
Laboratoire de neurophysiologie, URA 1331 CNRS, faculté de médecine, Amiens, France.
Joly
H
H
Duron
B
B
D000200:Action Potentials / Q000502:physiology; D001921:Brain / Q000254:growth & development / Q000502:physiology*; D002648:Child; D004569:Electroencephalography; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007223:Infant; D007231:Infant, Newborn; D008297:Male; D009132:Muscles / Q000502:physiology; D009431:Neural Conduction / Q000502:physiology; D009434:Neural Pathways / Q000254:growth & development / Q000502:physiology; D011930:Reaction Time / Q000502:physiology; D013116:Spinal Cord / Q000254:growth & development / Q000502:physiology*; D004561:Transcutaneous Electric Nerve Stimulation
Développement postnatal des voies motrices centrales. Etude électrophysiologique.