Lack of fixed order of recruitment in cat motoneuron pools.

Abstract

Henneman et al. have shown that a wide variety of stimuli activate motoneurons in the order of their sizes, though some reversals occur. It is not clear which motoneurons should be included in the “pool” from which recruitment by size takes place. The “pool” may consist of 1. all the motoneurons to a given muscle 2. all the motoneurons in a given ventral root or 3. all the motoneurons activated by a given stimulus. We have examined recruitment in the pool of fibers to a given muscle. A variety of mechanical stimuli to cat's legs were used to elicit bursts of activity in gastrocnemius motor units. In 30% of pairs of units, one unit had a consistently lower threshold, i.e. it always began and ended a burst. In the other 70%, either unit could start or end a burst. For 48% of motor unit pairs recorded in either the medial or lateral gastrocnemius, each unit of the pair had runs of firing of at least 10 spikes while the other was totally inactive. By the same criterion, 23% of pairs of temporalis units showed differential activity. During spontaneous breathing there was no consistent recruitment order in 24% of pairs of units in throat respiratory muscles. These data indicate that reversals of recruitment order are relatively common for motoneurons innervating the same muscle. We discuss the possibility that size principle may hold for motoneurons in a single ventral rootlet whose somas are anatomical neighbors (even though they innervate different muscles), but not for motoneurons that are anatomically distant in the cord (even though they innervate the same muscle).