Age-related changes of the stretch reflex excitability in human ankle muscles |
| |
| Authors: | Hiroki Obata Noritaka Kawashima Masami Akai Kimitaka Nakazawa Tatsuyuki Ohtsuki |
| |
| Affiliation: | 1. Department of Physiology, Kinki University, Faculty of Medicine, Osakasayama, Japan;2. Department of Food Science and Nutrition, Kinki University, Faculty of Agriculture, Nara, Japan;3. Department of Surgery, Kinki University, Faculty of Medicine, Osakasayama, Japan;4. Department of Clinical Pathological Biochemistry, Chiba University, Graduate School of Medicine, Chiba, Japan;5. Department of Applied Biology, Kyoto Institute of Technology, Kyoto, Japan;6. Department of Animal Bioscience, Faculty of Bioscience, Nagahama Institute of Bio-Science and Technology, Nagahama, Japan |
| |
| Abstract: | The purpose of this study was to characterize the effects of aging on the stretch reflex in the ankle muscles, and in particular to compare the effects on the ankle dorsi-flexor (tibialis anterior: TA) and the plantar-flexor (soleus: SOL). Stretch reflex responses were elicited in the TA and SOL at rest and during weak voluntary contractions in 20 elderly and 23 young volunteers. The results indicated that, in the TA muscle, the elderly group had a remarkably larger long-latency reflex (LLR), whereas no aging effect was found in the short latency reflex (SLR). These results were very different from those in the SOL muscle, which showed significant aging effects in the SLR and medium latency reflex (MLR), but not in the LLR. Given the fact that the LLR of the TA stretch reflex includes the cortical pathway, it is probable that the effects of aging on the TA stretch reflex involve alterations not only at the spinal level but also at the cortical level. The present results indicate that the stretch reflexes of each of the ankle antagonistic muscles are affected differently by aging, which might have relevance to the neural properties of each muscle. |
| |
| Keywords: | |
| 本文献已被 ScienceDirect 等数据库收录！ |
|
