A novel method to attain sinusoidal mechanical responses from single motor units.

INTRODUCTION: The relationship between output force and motor command depends on the intrinsic dynamic responses of motor units (MUs), which can be characterized by evoking accurate sinusoidal force responses at different frequencies. In this study we sought to determine whether sinusoidal modulation of the stimulation rate of single MUs results in reliable sinusoidal force changes.

METHODS: Single axons of rat ventral roots were stimulated electrically by changing the pulse rate sinusoidally at different frequency modulation (0.4-1.0-2.0-4.0 Hz for slow, 1.0-2.0-4.0-7.0 Hz for fast MUs). The twitching sinusoidal force signal was interpolated. We calculated harmonic distortion (HD) and the correlation coefficient (r) between theoretical sines and interpolated signals.

RESULTS: HD was always <5%, and r was always >0.97.

CONCLUSIONS: The HD and r-values obtained indicate highly reliable sinusoidal responses, which supports the potential use of this method to further characterize the dynamic behavior of single MUs.