Dr. Adele Edisen, a physiology research fellow at the Louisiana State University School of MediIcine, has demonstrated that the process by which one nerve cell "inhibits" another to allow coordinated action need not require a specialized nerve link between the two cells.
But, she says, nobody yet knows exactly how one cell inhibits another.
Dr. Edisen, working with cats, has demonstrated anatomically, as well as physiologically, that >the connection between an inhibitory cell and a cell to be inhibited can be a direct connection, needing no linkage by an intermediate cell.
"Furthermore," she says, "the region of the cell where such aj connection is made appears to be specific. They may greatly aid in the search for the actual mechanism of the inhibitory process."
Her work at LSU is concerned with the simplest form of inhibitory phenomena in spinal cord reflexes.
