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Orderly Recruitment

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Understanding the Brain: The Neurobiology of Everyday Life

The University of Chicago

4.9 (883 ratings) | 86K Students Enrolled

Learn how the nervous system produces behavior, how we use our brain every day, and how neuroscience can explain the common problems afflicting people today. We will study functional human neuroanatomy and neuronal communication, and then use this information to understand how we perceive the outside world, move our bodies voluntarily, stay alive, and play well with others.

Skills You'll Learn

Brain, Neurological Disorders, Neurobiology, Neurology

Reviews

4.9 (883 ratings)

5 stars
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JK

May 29, 2017

The course is easy to understand while it has covered quite a lot of details on neurobiology. It is also inspiring to feel the Prof. Mason's love for the neurobiology through the course.

RM

May 29, 2017

This is a must-take course to learn about the self and the world around us as it relates to neurobiology. Professor Peggy Mason rocks. Very glad I opted for this class, learned so much!

From the lesson

Voluntary Movements

"Voluntary movements are how we interact with the world. The organization of the motor system has implications for how we move, and the types of movements we can make. This module we'll start to explore the organization of the motor system, from neurons to muscles. This module contains a lot of material, so be sure to start early so that you have time to finish!"

Fast and Slow Fibers5:12

Motoneuron Types4:11

Orderly Recruitment7:40

Exercise and Muscle Mass2:48

Taught By

Peggy Mason
Professor

[MUSIC].

Okay, so now, what we're going to do is see how in

your normal circumstance, how are we going to engage our motor neurons?

The motor neurons, motor neuron activation

is required for skeletal muscle contraction.

Well, who's going to tell the motor neurons

how, how to when, when to become activated?

Well, it depends on the type of motor neuron, and the type

of motor neuron is the same as the type of motor unit.

So, motor neuron, motor unit, same same thing.

So the slow motor neurons innervate a very small number

of muscle fibers and therefore they produce not very much force.

Now they can last for a long time, but they don't

produce much force because they don't innervate very many muscle fibers.

The fast fatigue resistant motor neurons innervate maybe 10, 30

muscle fibers, and so they produce a little bit more force.

The fast fatigables can innervate hundreds of muscle

fibers and they can produce a big force.

So, let's say that I want to start running.

I'm walking, I'm standing and as I'm standing,

I'm using slow fibers, slow motor neurons, and so

if we put force here and time is going this way.

So, I'm standing and I've got say five slow motor

units activated, but now I want to start to walk, I increase the

number of slow motor neur motor units that are activated.

And only when a lot of slow motor units are

activated do I then engage, so this is all slow, then

I start to engage the fast fatigue resistant motor neurons

and I increase my, the amount of force that I produce.

And then eventually, when I've engaged all those fast

fatigue motor units, I start to engage the fast fatigables,

and now we're going to get a big increase in in

the amount of force that I've produced from this muscle.

And so, this is good for walking, I'm sorry, this is good for standing.

This is going to be good for walking.

And this is going to be good for running or jumping or doing something like that.

Can't sustain it for very long, but I can get a lot of force out of it.

And this is called orderly recruitment and it's a very important concept.

It's essentially a, a motor version of, of Weber's Law.

So, let's, let's imagine, what would it look like if if we didn't have

orderly recruitment, let's say that it was just it was just a random.

Which type of motor neuron type, motor unit, was engaged at the beginning?

Well if I went, I was going along here, and

I had these slow motor units happening, and then I all

of a sudden turned on a fast fatigable motor unit,

I'd have this kind of thing, I'd have this jerky movement.

So that, that's not very useful, that's not very smooth.

And alternatively, if at this point, I put on, I

engage a slow motor unit, it's not going to make any difference.

It's too small an increment of, of force.

And so, orderly recruitment allows me to steadily

increase the force and to make a smooth movement.

So the smoothness of the movement is built in to orderly recruitment.

Now, there are some really very cool things here.

As it turns out, if you don't use it, you kind of lose it.

So, what I mean by that is if you're leave, leading a

relatively sedentary life and you ne, and you don't engage the

fast fatigable fibers in a muscle they become harder to recruit.

And so what you'll find is that if a

person that has a sedentary lifestyle, and they're asked to

make as strong a muscle contraction as they can,

they'll probably get 100% of these slow motor units engaged.

They'll get 100% of the fast fatigue resistant ones, but they'll get something

well less than 100%, maybe 70% or so, of, of the fast fatigue fast fatigables.

And so, what can you do about that?

Do strength extranau, exercising.

And as it turns out, this is one of the

great stories I, I find this very wonderful and, and helpful.

You can work out one time.

Lift weights, lift weights, you feel your muscles.

The next day, you are able to recruit more

fast fatigable fibers in the muscle that you exercised.

And that, that ease of recruitment of fast fatigable fibers due to one

strength exercise bout lasts for weeks.

So that's a very nice story so if

you want to get more fast fatigables online lift weights.

Now one other thing that we should look at is what

happens when we lose various types of, of motor units.

If we lose these slow motor units we're going to have a problem with endurance.

And if we lose the fast fatigables or if we don't actually ever

engage them because we're leading a very,

very sedentary life we're going to lose strength.

So, you can see that these different types of motor neurons and motor

unit, motor unit types differentially effect endurance and strength.

in, in, various diseases where where we

lose motor neuron, motor units there has

been the, the, attempt to try to make the muscle fibers

actually switch from, say, slow to fast, and that's

that's an ongoing area of, of investigation.

It, it holds the promise of being able to give people who have lost strength some

more strength back if we could, for instance,

switch a slow fiber into a fast fiber.

it, it's not easily done, if at all, but

it's definitely something that holds promise for the future.

[MUSIC]

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