INVESTIGATIONS ON SYNAPTIC " TRANSMISSION W ALTER PITTS* THE

No more useful are the records from single electrodes thrust into the nervous felt, except where they show the impulses of blocked fibers or butted cells. We can tell the firing of single cells or fibers and measure their frequencies, but the chaos of synapsis is less neatly handled, and it is this chaos to which most of the pen-wiggles are attributed. There are three ways ' to get electricaL information about the central nervous system. The first two are indirect, and have been largely exploited. One is to examine the input-output relations of the whole structure: the other is to use emergent fibers as electrotonic probes of events affecting their intramedullary extensions. The results of the former method are ambiguous, without detailed knowledge of the anatomy and physical properties of junctions.