Question

What is the response of a muscle fiber to an increase in the firing rate of...

  1. What is the response of a muscle fiber to an increase in the firing rate of a neuron at the neuromuscular junction? How does the nervous system increase the force of contraction in a muscle composed of many motor units?

Homework Answers

Answer #1

Increase firing rate of a neuron at the neuromuscular junction results in temporal summation.

Temporal summation occurs when a high frequency of action potentials in the presynaptic neuron elicits postsynaptic potentials that summate with each other.

Temporal summation makes the motor units firing increase their increase the rate of firing resulting in increased force of contraction. When the frequency of stimulation becomes great enough, the muscle will not have time to relax completely before the next contraction begins. At this point the degree of contraction will increase due to temporal summation.

Force of a muscle composed of many motor units is increased by increasing the stimulation of many motor units resulting in contraction of more motor fibers.

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