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Immediate and remote postactivation effects in the human motor system

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Postactivation effects consisting of protracted involuntary muscular contraction after 30–60 sec sustained voluntary effort were investigated. It was found that postactivation effects may be observed at the proximal muscles (uninvolved in the voluntary activity) following distal muscle contraction. Testing the state of muscles by the vibration activity of the muscle receptors showed that concealed changes persisting for 15–20 min occur apart from the direct postactivation effects already known. The point is made that postactivation phenomena reflecting the operation of certain central tonogenic structures activated by a voluntary effort or an increased afferent inflow may successfully be used in the study of postural control mechanisms.

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Institute for Research into Information Transmission, Academy of Sciences of the USSR, Moscow. Translated from Neirofiziologiya, Vol. 21, No. 3, pp. 343–351, May–June, 1989.

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Gurfinkel', V.S., Levik, Y.S. & Lebedev, M.A. Immediate and remote postactivation effects in the human motor system. Neurophysiology 21, 247–253 (1989). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01058224

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01058224

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