MOVESCI 241 Lecture Notes - Lecture 5: Motor Unit, Brainstem, Cerebellum

• School: U of M
• Department: Movement Science
• Course: MOVESCI 241
• Professor: Professor Brown

Document Summary

If its acting like a synergist you already have muscle force provided by the prime mover. A synergist can make the movement faster. Can fire up to 150 hz (movement initiation. Graph - each line reps the activity of a single motor unit. As the force increases you can see recruitment and the change in firing rate. In general both recruitment and freq modulation occur during muscle contraction. Hand (full recruitment at 30-40% max force) Mu so large that you are still recruiting motor units up until 80% of the max force of the muscle. Different based on the function of the muscle. Electromyography - recording of muscle activity (surface,needle electrodes) Used to examine the pattern of muscle activity associated with limb movement - eg phasic versus tonic muscle activity. You"re able to peer into the language of the nervous and how a muscle is activated. Tonic and phasic refers to the pathway of muscle activity not movement.