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A neuron, neurone, [1] or nerve cell is an excitable cell that fires electric signals called action potentials across a neural network in the nervous system.They are located in the brain and spinal cord and help to receive and conduct impulses.
The three types of these neurons are the alpha efferent neurons, beta efferent neurons, and gamma efferent neurons. They are called efferent to indicate the flow of information from the central nervous system (CNS) to the periphery. Alpha motor neurons innervate extrafusal muscle fibers, which are the main force-generating component of a muscle.
While individual neurons are simple, many of them together in a network can perform complex tasks. There are two main types of neural network. In neuroscience , a biological neural network is a physical structure found in brains and complex nervous systems – a population of nerve cells connected by synapses .
Like other neurons, lower motor neurons have both afferent (incoming) and efferent (outgoing) connections. Alpha motor neurons receive input from a number of sources, including upper motor neurons, sensory neurons, and interneurons. The primary output of α-MNs is to extrafusal muscle fibers. This afferent and efferent connectivity is required ...
Glutamate released from the upper motor neurons triggers depolarization in the lower motor neurons in the anterior grey column, which in turn causes an action potential to propagate the length of the axon to the neuromuscular junction where acetylcholine is released to carry the signal across the synaptic cleft to the postsynaptic receptors of the muscle cell membrane, signaling the muscle to ...
Unlike the alpha motor neurons, gamma motor neurons do not directly adjust the lengthening or shortening of muscles. However, their role is important in keeping muscle spindles taut, thereby allowing the continued firing of alpha neurons, leading to muscle contraction. These neurons also play a role in adjusting the sensitivity of muscle ...
Muscles which possess more motor units (and thus have greater individual motor neuron innervation) are able to control force output more finely. Motor units are organized slightly differently in invertebrates : each muscle has few motor units (typically less than 10), and each muscle fiber is innervated by multiple neurons, including excitatory ...
Neuromechanics is an interdisciplinary field that combines biomechanics and neuroscience to understand how the nervous system interacts with the skeletal and muscular systems to enable animals to move. [1] [2] In a motor task, like reaching for an object, neural commands are sent to motor neurons to