Musculoskeletal Modeling and Simulation
Objective: Develop a realistic model of muscle force generation that incorporates physiologically-based properties of motor unit control.
Results
The model replicated the increase in motor unit firing rates and the recruitment of additional higher amplitude motor units that is known to occur in order to sustain a given task as fatigue develops, and shed light of the neural mechanisms of force control.
The ability to extend such studies to dynamic activities opens the door to investigating the control of human movement during functional unconstrained tasks.
Other References
Miller et al. Examination of muscle composition and motor unit behavior of the first dorsal interosseous of normal and overweight children. J Neurophysiol 2018.
Sterczala et al. Age-related differences in the motor unit action potential size in relation to recruitment threshold. Clin Physiol Funct Imaging 2017.
Miller et al. Time-related changes in firing rates are influenced by recruitment threshold and twitch force potentiation in the first dorsal interosseous. Exp Physiol 2017.
Pope et al. Action potential amplitude as a noninvasive indicator of motor unit-specific hypertrophy. J Neurophysiol 2016.
Trevino et al. The influence of the contractile properties of muscle on motor unit firing rates during a moderate contraction intensity in vivo. J Neurophysiol 2016.
Herda et al. The change in motor unit firing rates at derecruitment relative to recruitment is correlated with type I myosin heavy chain isoform content of the vastus lateralis in vivo. Acta Physiol 2015.
Trevino et al. The effects of poliomyelitis on motor unit behavior during repetitive muscle actions: a case report.BMC Research Notes 2014.
Zaheer et al. Preferred Sensor Sites for Surface EMG Signal Detection. Physiol Meas 2012