Research – Motor Control – It’s the small points for muscle activation

In a recent blogpost from Neuroscience Research Australia they discussed the effect of limb position on bicep and tricep activation.  Well, it did have an effect, depending on the position of the limb, there would be increased or decreased corticospinal excitability. They concluded that the level of the nervous system where arm/forearm position altered corticospinal stability was more in the spinal cord than brain, reminding us of the complexity of the nervous system and how the levels mingle with each other to influence control of our body.

This can relate to the concept of joint centration from DNS(Dynamic Neuromuscular Stabilization).  Considering the nature of the rehabilitation style, along with the influences of Vojta Reflex Stimulation, evoking descending cortical motor control is the basic goal of rehabilitation.  The position of the body can help or hurt the efforts to gain control of the target muscle group, knowledge of these positions can be vital in the more difficult chronic pain and neurological cases where the little details make the difference.

 

Arm posture influences spinal cord excitability

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