PSYCH261 Lecture Notes - Lecture 52: Golgi Tendon Organ, Neuromuscular Junction, Axon Terminal
29 Apr 2019
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Neuromuscular junction: the synapse between the terminal buttons of an axon and a muscle fibre. One of the codes that we learned for sensory systems was a rate code, and we can see that in the sensory components of the motor system as well. Middle = the arm is abruptly dropped. Bottom = we have placed a weight into a hand. Two different classes of muscle spindles and they respond differently to muscle lengthening: muscle spindle one fires more rapidly as the muscle slowly lengthens. It then maintains this tonic increase in firing: sudden drop = recording the length change, muscle spindle two is related to the abruptness of that. It sends off a small burst of spikes which signal the sudden change and then returns to its baseline firing rate. The golgi tendon organ has not changed its firing rate because it is not particularly sensitive to muscle lengthening.
