| Kuhne's spindle | A fusiform end organ in skeletal muscle in which afferent and a few efferent nerve fibres terminate; it contains from 3 to 10 striated muscle fibres (intrafusal fibres) that are much smaller than the ordinary muscle fibres, are separated from them by a capsule that encloses the organ, and are innervated by the thin axon of a gamma motoneuron (gamma motor fibre); the sensory endings that occur on the intrafusal fibres are either annulospiral or flower spray endings; this sensory end organ is particularly sensitive to passive stretch of the muscle in which it is enclosed. Synonym: Kuhne's spindle, muscle spindle. (05 Mar 2000) |
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| Kuhne | Wilhelm (Willy) F., German physiologist and histologist, 1837-1900. See: Kuhne's fibre, Kuhne's methylene blue, Kuhne's phenomenon, Kuhne's plate, Kuhne's spindle. (05 Mar 2000) |
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| Kuhne's fibre | Artificial muscle fibre made by filling the intestine of an insect with a growth of myxomycetes; used to demonstrate the contractility of protoplasm. (05 Mar 2000) |
| Kuhne's methylene blue | Methylene blue in absolute alcohol and phenol solution. (05 Mar 2000) |
| Kuhne's phenomenon | When a constant current is passed through a muscle, an undulation is seen to pass from the positive to the negative pole. (05 Mar 2000) |
| Kuhne's plate | The endplate of a motor nerve fibre in a muscle spindle. (05 Mar 2000) |
| aortic spindle | A fusiform dilation of the aorta immediately beyond the isthmus. Synonym: His' spindle. (05 Mar 2000) |
| central spindle | A central group of microtubules (continuous fibres) that course uninterrupted, between the asters, in contrast to the microtubules attached to the individual chromosomes (s. Fibres). (05 Mar 2000) |
| meiotic spindle | The meiotic equivalent of the mitotic spindle. (18 Nov 1997) |
| cleavage spindle | The spindle formed during the cleavage of a zygote or its blastomeres. (05 Mar 2000) |
| mitotic spindle | See: spindle and mitosis. (18 Nov 1997) |
| mitotic spindle apparatus | An organelle consisting of three components: 1) the astral microtubules, which form around each centrosome and extend to the periphery; 2) the polar microtubules which extend from one spindle pole to the equator; and 3) the kinetochore microtubules, which connect the centromeres of the various chromosomes to either centrosome. (12 Dec 1998) |
| muscle spindle | A specialised muscle fibre found in tetrapod vertebrates. A bundle of muscle fibres is innervated by sensory neurons. Stretching the muscle causes the neurons to fire, the muscle spindle thus functions as a stretch receptor. (18 Nov 1997) |
| His' spindle | A fusiform dilation of the aorta immediately beyond the isthmus. Synonym: His' spindle. (05 Mar 2000) |
| sleep spindle | The electroencephalographic record of 14-per-second bursts of wave frequency seen on EEG examination. (05 Mar 2000) |
| spindle | See: mitosis, spindle fibre. (18 Nov 1997) |