Evoked potentials elicited on the cerebellar cortex by electrical stimulation of the rat spinocerebellar tract.
BACKGROUND
In the current study, as a first step to develop a monitoring method of cerebellar functions, we tried to record evoked potentials on the cerebellar cortex by electrical stimulation of the rat SCT, which is located in the Inf-CPed.


METHODS
The experimental study was performed on rats. Unilateral muscular contractions of quadriceps femoris muscle were elicited by electrical stimulation. The evoked potentials were recorded from the surface of the ipsilateral cerebellum and the contralateral primary sensory cortex.


RESULTS
The highly reproducible potentials obtained from the ipsilateral cerebellar hemisphere were named SCEP. The SCEP exhibited one negative peak with a latency of 11.7 +/- 0.3 milliseconds (N(11)). Short-latency somatosensory evoked potential was recorded from the contralateral primary sensory cortex with a latency of 19.1 +/- 0.6 milliseconds. Coagulation of the ipsilateral Inf-CPed caused disappearance or marked reduction of the SCEP N(11), but it did not change the SSEP. On the other hand, sectioning of the ipsilateral dorsal column resulted in the disappearance of the SSEP, but it did not affect the SCEP N(11).


CONCLUSIONS
Reproducible SCEP was recorded from the rat cerebellar hemisphere by electrical stimulation of the quadriceps femoris muscle. We posit that the SCEP differs from the SSEP, which ascends via the dorsal column, and that it is conducted by the dorsal SCT located in the Inf-CPed. Our results suggest that it may be possible to detect the dysfunction of the Inf-CPed electrophysiologically by using SCEP.
Muramatsu
Hiroyuki
H
Department of Neurosurgery, Fukushima Medical University, Fukushima 960-1295, Japan. mmkk@fmu.ac.jp
Suzuki
Kyouichi
K
Sasaki
Tatsuya
T
Matsumoto
Masato
M
Sakuma
Jun
J
Oinuma
Masahiro
M
Itakura
Takeshi
T
Kodama
Namio
N
D000200:Action Potentials / Q000502:physiology; D000818:Animals; D001369:Axons / Q000502:physiology; D002525:Cerebellar Cortex / Q000033:anatomy & histology / Q000502:physiology*; D004558:Electric Stimulation / Q000379:methods; D004594:Electrophysiology / Q000379:methods*; D005071:Evoked Potentials / Q000502:physiology*; D008297:Male; D008526:Medulla Oblongata / Q000033:anatomy & histology / Q000502:physiology; D009431:Neural Conduction / Q000502:physiology*; D052097:Quadriceps Muscle / Q000294:innervation / Q000502:physiology; D051381:Rats; D017208:Rats, Wistar; D011930:Reaction Time / Q000502:physiology; D020824:Spinocerebellar Tracts / Q000033:anatomy & histology / Q000502:physiology*