The neural control of movement: a century of in vivo motor unit recordings is the legacy of Adrian and Bronk
Author(s)
Farina, Dario
Gandevia, Simon
Type
Journal Article
Abstract
In two papers dated 1928 to 1929 in The Journal of Physiology, Edgar Adrian and Detlev Bronk described recordings from motor nerve and muscle fibres. The recordings from motor nerve fibres required progressive dissection of the nerve until a few fibres remained, from which isolated single fibre activity could be detected. The muscle fibre recordings were performed in humans during voluntary contractions with an intramuscular electrode – the concentric needle electrode – that they describe for the first time in the second paper. They recognised that muscle fibres would respond to each impulse sent by the innervating motor neurone and that therefore muscle fibre recordings provided information on the times of activation of the motor nerve fibres which were as accurate as a direct record from the nerve. These observations and the description of the concentric needle electrode opened the era of motor unit recordings in humans, which have continued for almost a century and have provided a comprehensive view of the neural control of movement at the motor unit level. Despite important advances in technology, many of the principles of motor unit behaviour that would be investigated in the subsequent decades were canvassed in the two papers by Adrian and Bronk. For example, they described the concomitant motor neurones’ recruitment and rate coding for force modulation, synchronisation of motor unit discharges, and the dependence of discharge rate on motor unit recruitment threshold. Here, we summarise their observations and discuss the impact of their work. We highlight the advent of the concentric needle, and its subsequent influence on motor control research.
Date Issued
2024-01-15
Date Acceptance
2023-11-24
Citation
The Journal of Physiology, 2024, 602 (2), pp.281-295
ISSN
0022-3751
Publisher
Wiley
Start Page
281
End Page
295
Journal / Book Title
The Journal of Physiology
Volume
602
Issue
2
Copyright Statement
© 2023 The Authors. The Journal of Physiology published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of The Physiological Society. This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
License URL
Identifier
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/38059891
Subjects
concentric needle
electromyography
motor neurone
motor unit
muscle
Humans
Muscle Fibers, Skeletal
Motor Neurons
Recruitment, Neurophysiological
Nerve Fibers
Electrodes
Electromyography
Muscle Contraction
Muscle, Skeletal
Publication Status
Published
Coverage Spatial
England
Date Publish Online
2023-12-07