The influence of dissection and of the contact with glass on the contractile activity of plasmodial strands.
The non-invasive photometric techniques recording the contraction-relaxation cycles demonstrate the absence of any lag period in pulsation of isolated veins in situ. Contractions are temporarily inhibited at the site of contact of the vein surface with a glass rod. This indicates that the results obtained with the techniques, in which glass sensors were used to detect the contractile activity, are not conclusive and provide no reliable data about the motive force generation site in plasmodium.
D009068:Movement; D010783:Photometry; D010804:Physarum / Q000502:physiology*