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Spinal inhibition of descending command to soleus motoneurons is removed prior to dorsiflexion
Author(s) -
Geertsen Svend S.,
van de Ruit Mark,
Grey Michael J.,
Nielsen Jens B.
Publication year - 2011
Publication title -
the journal of physiology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.802
H-Index - 240
eISSN - 1469-7793
pISSN - 0022-3751
DOI - 10.1113/jphysiol.2011.214387
Subject(s) - soleus muscle , h reflex , stimulation , transcranial magnetic stimulation , neuroscience , facilitation , motor neuron , common peroneal nerve , medicine , reflex , anesthesia , anatomy , spinal cord , chemistry , psychology , skeletal muscle
Non‐technical summary The coordination of antagonistic muscle activity starts well in advance of the onset of voluntary movement. We recently demonstrated that antagonist muscle responses evoked by stimulation of the brain were increased prior to voluntary contraction at the ankle. Although our data indicated that this was explained by activation of a subcortical motor program, the neural pathways involved are unknown. Here we probe the transmission in the underlying neuronal networks by peripheral nerve stimulation in order to investigate the neural pathways responsible for this facilitation of antagonist muscle responses. We demonstrate that this stimulation produces a spinal inhibition of the antagonist muscle responses, which is removed prior to voluntary contraction. We propose that the removal of this inhibition might explain the increased antagonist muscle responses prior to voluntary contraction at the ankle. This mechanism might enable the direction of movement to be changed quickly during functional motor tasks such as dribbling.