Education
 

Extrafusal muscle fibers

From Psychology Wiki

Community portal · Tasks to do · News · Help

Clinical · Educational · Ind&Org · Other fields · Professional · Transpersonal · World

Assessment | Biopsychology | Comparative | Cognitive | Developmental | Language
Personality | Philosophy | Research Methods | Social | Statistics

Biological: Behavioural genetics · Evolutionary psychology · Neuroanatomy · Neurochemistry · Neuroendocrinology · Psychoneuroimmunology · Physiological Psychology · Psychopharmacology


Extrafusal muscle fibers are a class of muscle fiber innervated by alpha motor neurons.

They generate tension, do mechanical work and allow for movement by contracting.

Compare with intrafusal muscle fiber - is of sensory type and innervated by gamma motor neurons.

Extrafusal muscle fibers and associated alpha motor neurons are called a motor unit. The connection between alpha motor neuron and extrafusal muscle fiber is a neuromuscular junction, and the neurotransmitter responsible for contraction is acetylcholine.

[edit] External links


Smallwikipedialogo.png This page uses content from the English-language version of Wikipedia. The original article was at Extrafusal muscle fiber. The list of authors can be seen in the page history. As with Psychology Wiki, the text of Wikipedia is available under the GNU Free Documentation License.