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A motor nerve, or efferent nerve, is a nerve that contains exclusively efferent nerve fibers and transmits motor signals from the central nervous system (CNS) to the muscles of the body. This is different from the motor neuron , which includes a cell body and branching of dendrites, while the nerve is made up of a bundle of axons.
A motor neuron (or motoneuron or efferent neuron [1]) is a neuron whose cell body is located in the motor cortex, brainstem or the spinal cord, and whose axon (fiber) projects to the spinal cord or outside of the spinal cord to directly or indirectly control effector organs, mainly muscles and glands. [2]
The motor system is the set of central and peripheral structures in the nervous system that support motor functions, i.e. movement. [ 1 ] [ 2 ] Peripheral structures may include skeletal muscles and neural connections with muscle tissues. [ 2 ]
Nervous tissue, also called neural tissue, is the main tissue component of the nervous system.The nervous system regulates and controls body functions and activity. It consists of two parts: the central nervous system (CNS) comprising the brain and spinal cord, and the peripheral nervous system (PNS) comprising the branching peripheral nerves.
Motor pools function primarily to integrate synaptic input from higher CNS centers into precise and consistent contraction patterns. Individual motor neurons within a given motor pool fire in accordance with what is known as the 'size principle'. The size principle was proposed by Elwood Henneman and his group in the 1960s as an explanation of ...
A single motor neuron and the muscle fibers it innervates are called a motor unit. For example, the rectus femoris contains approximately 1 million muscle fibers, which are controlled by around 1000 motor neurons. Activity in the motor neuron causes contraction in all of the innervated muscle fibers so that they function as a unit.
The PNS includes motor neurons, mediating voluntary movement; the autonomic nervous system, comprising the sympathetic nervous system and the parasympathetic nervous system and regulating involuntary functions; and the enteric nervous system, a semi-independent part of the nervous system whose function is to control the gastrointestinal system.
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 ...