Biological Cybernetics

, Volume 73, Issue 2, pp 189–194 | Cite as

Discharge patterns of tonically firing human motoneurones

  • Andrew V. Poliakov
  • Timothy S. Miles
  • Michael A. Nordstrom
Original Papers
Received:
Accepted:

Abstract

We have attempted to reconcile the different patterns of distribution of interspike intervals that are found in motoneurones made to discharge by intracellular injection of constant current in reduced animal preparations and by voluntary control in human subjects. We recorded long spike trains from single motor units in three human muscles made to discharge at constant mean frequencies with the help of auditory and visual feedback. The distribution of interspike intervals in each spike train was analysed quantitatively. We found that the different pattern of discharge of the human motor units could be accounted for when due allowance was made for the variability of the drive to the human motoneurone which arose because of the feedback process used to maintain the target frequency. A model testing this hypothesis gave results that were qualitatively consistent with the human data.

Keywords

Human Subject Motor Unit Visual Feedback Spike Train Constant Current 
These keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.
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Copyright information

© Springer-Verlag 1995

Authors and Affiliations

  • Andrew V. Poliakov
    • 1
  • Timothy S. Miles
    • 1
  • Michael A. Nordstrom
    • 1
  1. 1.Department of PhysiologyThe University of AdelaideAdelaideAustralia

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