Motor unit
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A motor unit is a single α-motor neuron and all of the corresponding muscle fibers it innervates. Groups of motor units often work together to coordinate the contractions of a single muscle; all of the motor units that subserve a single muscle are considered a motor unit pool. The number of muscle fibers within each unit can vary: thigh muscles can have a thousand fibers in each unit, eye muscles might have ten. In general, the number of muscle fibers innervated by a motor unit is a function of a muscle's need for refined motion. Muscles requiring more refined motion are innervated by motor units that synapse with fewer muscle fibers.
In medical electrodiagnostic testing for a patient with weakness, careful analysis of the "motor unit action potential" (MUAP) size, shape, and recruitment pattern can help in distinguishing a myopathy from a neuropathy.
[edit] See also
skeletal muscle/general: epimysium, fascicle, perimysium, endomysium, muscle fiber, myofibril
sarcomere (a, i, and h bands; z and m lines), myofilaments (thin filament/actin, thick filament/myosin, elastic filament/titin), tropomyosin, troponin
neuromuscular junction, intrafusal muscle fiber, extrafusal muscle fiber, motor unit, muscle spindle, sliding filament mechanism
myoblast, satellite cells, sarcoplasm, sarcolemma, sarcoplasmic reticulum, T-tubule
- de:Motorische Einheit
- fr:Unité motrice
| This page uses content from the English-language version of Wikipedia. The original article was at Motor unit. 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. |
