2011 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

Non-invasive analysis of recruitment properties of human motor units using electrical muscle stimulation

Research Project

Project/Area Number	21700651
Research Category	Grant-in-Aid for Young Scientists (B)
Allocation Type	Single-year Grants
Research Field	Sports science
Research Institution	The University of Tokyo
Principal Investigator	SASAKI Kazushige 東京大学, 大学院・総合文化研究科, 助教 (00451849)
Project Period (FY)	2009 – 2011
Keywords	生理学 / 骨格筋 / 単収縮 / サイズの原理 / 筋電図
Research Abstract	The purpose of this study was to test whether recruitment properties of human motor units can be non-invasively determined by using electrical muscle stimulation. Specifically, a single electrical pulse was applied to the resting muscle before and after a 6-s voluntary force production and then the "potentiation" of electrically evoked contractile response due to the voluntary force production was determined. The results suggest that the magnitude of potentiation represents the recruitment properties of fast-twitch muscle fibers during voluntary muscle contraction predicted from the "size principle".

(3 results)