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Canadian Institutes of Health Research Group in Sensory-Motor Systems
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Dr. Ken Rose - Group Director
Professor of Physiology
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Motoneurons represent the final link between central nervous system
structures involved in the control of movement and the effectors of motor
systems - skeletal muscles. By virtue of this unique position, motoneurons
play a pivotal role in the control of movement. The execution of this task
is not simple. Motoneurons possess a remarkably elaborate dendritic tree
which is contacted by more than 30,000 synapses. The response of the motoneuron
to any one of these inputs depends upon the relative activation or inactivation
of a rich array of voltage and chemically dependent channels. Our current
research is designed to determine the integration of the structural and
physiological properties of spinal motoneurons. These experiments involve
a neuroanatomical analysis of the distribution and frequency of synapses
from identified spinal systems which terminate on the dendritic trees of
neck motoneurons and biophysical studies of the active and passive membrane
properties of neck motoneurons. Other studies are concerned with the mechanisms
and consequences of the unusual growth of dendrites of neck motoneurons
following peripheral nerve injury.
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