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Neuromuscular Tone: Concepts of the “Moscow Motor Control School” from N.A. Bernstein until Today

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Abstract

The notions on neuromuscular tone are discussed up from the time of N.A.Bernstein, who regarded it as level A, Rubro-Spinal Level of Paleokinetic Regulations in his book On the Construction of Movements (1947). In 1963, an article on Tonus (Tone) written by N.A. Bernstein together with Y.M. Kots appeared in the second edition of the Big Medical Encyclopedia. It extended the notion of neuromuscular tone with the use of new experimental data obtained by that time by R. Granit and P.B.C. Matthews. Parts of the interview of the author with A.G. Feldman, the author of the Equilibrium-Point Hypotheses are also presented, where the specificity of scientific research and achievements of the “Moscow motor control school” are discussed. Different methods of experimental measurement and ways of influencing the human neuromuscular tone are presented in this paper.

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Notes

  1. Kots, Yakov Mikhailovich (1931–2019), Doctor of Medical Sciences, Professor; in 1955 he graduated from the First Moscow Medical Institute, then finished post-graduate studies at the Institute of Physiology of Children and Adolescents under the leadership of V.S. Farfel. He defended his candidate of science dissertation in 1961 (the official opponent was N.A. Bernstein, with whom joint articles on physiology were written in the encyclopedia). He worked at the Institute of Biophysics of the Academy of Sciences of the Soviet Union under the leadership of I.M. Gelfand in the laboratory of biophysics in the group of V.S. Gurfinkel. Since 1964, he worked at the Russian State University of Physical Culture, Sports, Youth, and Tourism, where he headed the Department of Physiology since 1973. In 1972 he defended his doctoral dissertation on Spinal Mechanisms of Organization of Voluntary Movement at the USSR Academy of Medical Sciences. His major works are as follows: Regulation of Human Posture (co-authored with V.S. Gurfinkel and M.L. Shik. Moscow: Nauka, 1965); Organization of Voluntary Movement: Neurophysiological Mechanisms. Moscow: Nauka, 1975 (translated into English as Organization of Voluntary Movement, E.V. Evarts, Ed., New York: Plenum, 1977); manual General Physiology of Muscular Activity for students of institutes of physical culture. Since 1986 he worked in the United States. He gained worldwide fame as the author of the technique of electrical muscle stimulation.

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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

The author is grateful to M.L. Latash and O.V. Kazennikov for valuable remarks made by them during the preparation of the article.

Funding

The study was supported by the Russian Foundation for Basic Research, grant No. 18-015-00222.

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  1. Kharkevich Institute for Information Transmission Problems, Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow, Russia

    V. L. Talis

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Correspondence to V. L. Talis.

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Translated by L. Solovyova

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Talis, V.L. Neuromuscular Tone: Concepts of the “Moscow Motor Control School” from N.A. Bernstein until Today. Hum Physiol 47, 249–253 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1134/S0362119721030166

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