Abstract
Attempts to find out how the fusimotor system is used in controlling normal movements have mainly centred on making single unit recordings of spindle afferents and deducing from them and movement records what static and dynamic activities must be present. Three main experimental approaches have given useful data of this kind. The introduction of recording unit activity with metal microelectrodes in human nerves by Hagbarth and Vallbo (microneurography) has yielded much interesting data over the past thirteen years and this is reviewed separately by those authors. Equivalent data in animals were first obtained in 1973 from jaw muscle spindle afferents recorded in mid-brain in cats and monkeys, and by Prochazka and his colleagues who in 1975 were able to achieve the same result by implanting microwires in dorsal roots in the lumbo-sacral region. Loeb’s group independently developed a similar technique by implanting wires in the dorsal root ganglia. The resulting data from human and animal experiments have given somewhat different views of the relationship of alpha activity to fusimotor activity. Human experimental data have been interpreted as generally supporting the idea of alpha-gamma coactivation as a principle of motor organisation. On the other hand, the animal data seem to favour more independence of action of the two systems, but according to Prochazka and Wand, with the spindles usually responding more obviously to length changes than to skeletomotor-coupled fusimotor changes.
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Taylor, A., Prochazka, A. (1981). Overview. In: Taylor, A., Prochazka, A. (eds) Muscle Receptors and Movement. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-06022-1_22
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-06022-1_22
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, London
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Online ISBN: 978-1-349-06022-1
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