How were motor unit recruitment temporal summation and tetan

How were motor unit recruitment, temporal summation and tetanic contractions demonstrated in the lab? What settings on the stimulator were adjusted to show these?

I don\'t completely understand this question, I just need help with defining and comparing these terms together and I\'ll go on from there!

Solution

Motor unit recruitment- Motor unit recruitment is referred to the activation of an additional motor unit to bring about an increase in the contractile strength inside a muscle. A motor unit typically consists of one motor neuron and all the muscle fibers that are stimulated by the neuron.

Temporal summation - Summation consists of both spatial and temporal summations. It is the process that determines if an action potential is supposed to be triggered by the effects of both, excitatory and inhibitory signals, arising from simultaneous inputs from multiple points for I.e.spatial summation, and from repeated inputs from a single neuron I.e. temporal summation.

Tetanic contractions- A tetanic contraction is a sustained muscle contraction that occurs when the motor nerve that would stimulate the skeletal muscle, would emit an action potential at very high rate. During a tetanic contraction, the muscles might lengthen, shorten or continue to remain at a constant length. Sometimes, this is also called as the tetanized state, tetanus, or physiologic tetanus. Physiologic tetanus is the used for the disease tetanus and not the contraction.