Higher Responsiveness of Pattern Generation Circuitry to Sensory Stimulation in Healthy Humans Is Associated with a Larger Hoffmann Reflex

Biology

Irina Y. Dolinskaya¹  Irina A. Solopova¹  Dmitry S. Zhvansky¹  Victor A. Selionov¹  Yury Ivanenko²  Francesco Lacquaniti²  Egor O. Blinov³ 

[1] Laboratory of Neurobiology of Motor Control, Institute for Information Transmission Problems, Russian Academy of Sciences, 127951 Moscow, Russia;Laboratory of Neuromotor Physiology, IRCCS Santa Lucia Foundation, 00179 Rome, Italy;School of Biological and Medical Physics, Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology, 141701 Dolgoprudny, Russia;

关键词: pattern generation circuitry;    spinal cord neuromodulation;    sensory stimulation;    rhythmogenesis;    H-reflex;    human;   

DOI  :  10.3390/biology11050707

来源: DOAJ

【 摘 要 】

The state and excitability of pattern generators are attracting the increasing interest of neurophysiologists and clinicians for understanding the mechanisms of the rhythmogenesis and neuromodulation of the human spinal cord. It has been previously shown that tonic sensory stimulation can elicit non-voluntary stepping-like movements in non-injured subjects when their limbs were placed in a gravity-neutral unloading apparatus. However, large individual differences in responsiveness to such stimuli were observed, so that the effects of sensory neuromodulation manifest only in some of the subjects. Given that spinal reflexes are an integral part of the neuronal circuitry, here we investigated the extent to which spinal pattern generation excitability in response to the vibrostimulation of muscle proprioceptors can be related to the H-reflex magnitude, in both the lower and upper limbs. For the H-reflex measurements, three conditions were used: stationary limbs, voluntary limb movement and passive limb movement. The results showed that the H-reflex was considerably higher in the group of participants who demonstrated non-voluntary rhythmic responses than it was in the participants who did not demonstrate them. Our findings are consistent with the idea that spinal reflex measurements play important roles in assessing the rhythmogenesis of the spinal cord.

【 授权许可】

Unknown