Distribution of motoneurons supplying cat sartorius and tensor fasciae latae, demonstrated by retrograde multiple-labelling methods

Sartorius (SART) and tensor fasciae latae (TFL) in the cat hindlimb are functionally heterogeneous muscles with regions that differ in their skeletal actions and electromyographic recruitment during normal activity. The topographical organization of motoneurons supplying different regions of SART or TFL has been investigated by exposing cut nerve branches supplying different peripheral territories to a combination of retrograde tracers, including Fast Blue (FB), Fluorogold (FG), and horseradish peroxidase (HRP). Motoneurons supplying medial, central, and anterior regions of SART were intermixed extensively throughout a single columnar nucleus located in the ventrolateral part of segments L4 and L5. Within this column, motoneurons supplying medial SART tended to lie more rostrally than those supplying anterior regions, but the gradient was modest and showed some cat‐to‐cat variation. Two major branches entered anterior SART at different proximodistal levels. When these two branches were exposed to different tracers, most motoneurons contained a single tracer; only a few double‐labelled cells were apparent. The labelling suggests that anterior SART may contain two separate, in‐series divisions of motor units. In TFL, motoneurons supplying nerve branches to posterior, central, and anterior parts of the muscle were intermingled indiscriminately in a single ventrolateral cell column in L6 and rostral L7. These results suggest that topographical organization in lumbar motor nuclei does not always reflect the highly ordered biomechanical and functional specialization evident in the peripheral organization of the muscles themselves.