The significance of the neurocytological changes following section of axones

Abstract

There has been a considerable amount of work done on the effect of an interruption of the continuity of nerve axones. But most of the work was done from an anatomical or from a pathological instead of from a physiological point of view. The author has observed the changes which occur after the section of an axone and shall attempt to correlate these anatomical changes with those changes observed in depression. First the nature of depression and its relation to functional activity will be considered. There are but two functional possibilities in the nerve cell, namely, activity and depression. Physiologically, activity represents an increase while depression represents a decrease in the intensity of vital phenomena. By comparison with the results of others, the physiological effect resulting from the cutting of the axone is the same for less differentiated types of nerve cells as for the highly specialized type of the cerebellum.