title: ELECTRICAL VARIATIONS DUE TO MECHANICAL TRANSMISSION OF STIMULI.
abstract: Mechanical stimulation of Nitella often produces responses resembling propagated negative variations but traveling faster and going past a killed spot. They appear to result from a mechanical disturbance traveling along the cell and stimulating each spot it touches (i.e. the stimulus itself travels). They are called mechanical variations to distinguish them from propagated negative variations. A mechanical disturbance may cause an irreversible change (death wave), but in traveling along the cell it may lose intensity and then produce only a reversible response (mechanical variation) which may eventually change to a propagated negative variation. The all or none law does not apply to incomplete mechanical variations, for the response varies with the strength of the stimulus.
authors.affiliation: Laboratories of The Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research.
authors.forename: W J
authors.initials: WJ
authors.lastname: Osterhout
authors.forename: S E
authors.initials: SE
authors.lastname: Hill