The Effect of Deafferentation Upon the Locomotory Activity of Amphibian Limbs

In 1912-13 Graham Brown and Sherrington showed, independently, that rhythmical activity could be maintained in a pair of deafferentated antagonistic mammalian muscles; since then it has been customary to regard locomotory rhythms as the expression of intrinsic activity within the nerve cord. On the other hand, a study of the responses of vertebrate limbs to suitable reflex stimulation makes it difficult to believe that impulses coming from peripheral sense organs do not play a very important role in the co-ordination of normal locomotory movements. The present paper constitutes an attempt to decide how far locomotion can occur in animals whose limbs have been completely desensitized by cutting the roots of their afferent nerves.