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THE ELECTRICAL RESPONSE OF MUSCLE TO VOLUNTARY, REFLEX, AND ARTIFICIAL STIMULATION
Author(s) -
Buchanan Florence
Publication year - 1908
Publication title -
quarterly journal of experimental physiology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.925
H-Index - 101
eISSN - 1469-445X
pISSN - 0370-2901
DOI - 10.1113/expphysiol.1908.sp000013
Subject(s) - rhythm , stimulus (psychology) , stimulation , reflex , human muscle , neuroscience , psychology , communication , biology , anatomy , cognitive psychology , physics , acoustics , skeletal muscle
In the electrical response of human muscles to their normal stimulus a rhythm presents itself which for the flexores digitorum has no constant frequency but may vary during one and the same response between 50 and about 120 per second, but which for the masseters is more uniform and of a higher frequency (170 to 200 per second). This rhythm is to be regarded as of peripheral origin, because it is of the same order and subject to the same sort of variation as is a rhythm which experiments on frogs have proved to be of such origin. As the corresponding rhythm may be produced in the response of frogs' muscle to various kinds of artificial stimuli which are not discontinuous, the rhythm obtaining in the electrical response of human muscle to the will has as yet given us no information as to whether the natural stimulus is rhythmical. Such information can only be gained by further experiments upon animals (not only upon cold‐blooded, but on warm‐blooded ones), in which it is possible to simplify and control the conditions to a greater extent than is possible in man.