TY - JOUR PY - 2013// TI - Startle reveals independent preparation and initiation of triphasic EMG burst components in targeted ballistic movements JO - Journal of Neurophysiology A1 - Forgaard, Christopher James A1 - Maslovat, Dana A1 - Carlsen, Anthony N. A1 - Chua, Romeo A1 - Franks, Ian M. SP - 2129 EP - 2139 VL - 110 IS - 9 N2 - Muscles involved in rapid, targeted movements about a single-joint often display a triphasic (agonist - antagonist - agonist) electromyographic (EMG) pattern. Early work using movement perturbations suggested that for short movements, the entire EMG pattern was prepared and initiated in advance (Wadman et al. 1979), whereas more recent TMS evidence indicates that the ANT may be programmed separately (MacKinnon and Rothwell 2000) with execution of the bursts occurring serially (Irlbacher et al. 2006). The purpose of the current study was to investigate the generation of triphasic EMG bursts for movements of different amplitudes. In Experiment 1, participants performed rapid elbow extension movements to 20° and 60° targets and on some trials, a startling acoustic stimulus (SAS), which is thought to trigger prepared motor commands at short latency, was delivered at the onset of AG1. For short movements, this perturbation elicited ANT and AG2 early, suggesting the agonist and antagonist bursts may have been programmed independently. In contrast, the same manipulation did not disrupt EMG timing parameters for the long movements, raising the possibility that ANT and AG2 were not fully programmed in advance of movement onset. In Experiment 2, a SAS was delivered later in the movement which produced early onset of both ANT and AG2. We propose that the triphasic pattern is executed serially but believe the trigger signal for initiating the ANT burst occurs not in relation to the AG1 burst, but rather in close temporal proximity to the expected onset of ANT.
Language: en
LA - en SN - 0022-3077 UR - http://dx.doi.org/10.1152/jn.00888.2012 ID - ref1 ER -