ArticleThe Journal of neuroscience : the official journal of the Society for Neuroscience2022
The Existence of the StartReact Effect Implies Reticulospinal, Not Corticospinal, Inputs Dominate Drive to Motoneurons during Voluntary Movement.
Article in The Journal of neuroscience : the official journal of the Society for Neuroscience, 2022. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 37 papers.
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Who cites it
37 citing papers in PubMed, 50 citations in OpenAlex.
- Six weeks of isometric resistance training led to evidence of corticospinal but not reticulospinal adaptation in previously untrained adult males.Experimental brain research · 2026Trial
- Resistance training tempo selectively modulates corticospinal and reticulospinal excitability in humans.The Journal of physiology · 2026Trial
- Determining the cortical, corticospinal, and reticulospinal responses to metronome-paced and self-paced strength training.European journal of applied physiology · 2026Trial
- Descending Brainstem Systems Contribute to Ankle Clonus in Humans with Spinal Cord Injury.The Journal of neuroscience : the official journal of the Society for Neuroscience · 2026Article
- Involvement of the reticulospinal system in the control of locomotion.The Journal of physiology · 2026Article
- Impact of the brainstem in normal and impaired human movement control.The Journal of physiology · 2026Review
- Novel evidence of age-related cortical and subcortical constraints in cross-education.GeroScience · 2026Article
- Age-related differences in corticospinal and reticulospinal adaptations to short-term strength training.European journal of applied physiology · 2026Article
- What Is the StartReact Effect?Acta physiologica (Oxford, England) · 2026Review
- Spinal motor neuron pools may be partly driven by impulsive common inputs.The Journal of physiology · 2026Article
- A Spinal Origin for the Obligate Flexor Synergy in the Nonhuman Primate: Implications for Control of Reaching.The Journal of neuroscience : the official journal of the Society for Neuroscience · 2026Article
- Evidence for Increased High Alpha Intermuscular Coherence as a Measure of Reticulospinal Motor Drive.The European journal of neuroscience · 2026Article
- Corticospinal, reticulospinal and motoneuronal contributions to fatigability during a sustained contraction of the elbow flexors.Experimental physiology · 2026Article
- Breathing-driven modulation of reticulospinal tract activity.Experimental physiology · 2026Article
- Arm Control and its Recovery after Selective Lesions of Sensorimotor Cortex and the Red Nucleus: A Kinematic Study in Non-Human Primates.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2026Article
- Article
- Mapping reticulospinal drive across various muscles of the upper and lower extremities.Experimental physiology · 2025Article
- The impact of electrical vestibular stimulation on the onset of erector spinae muscles activation elicited by a postural and a voluntary task.Experimental brain research · 2025Article
- Reticulospinal and corticospinal responses in long-term strength-trained and untrained adults.European journal of applied physiology · 2025Article
- A spinal origin for the obligate flexor synergy in the non-human primate: Implications for control of reaching.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2025Article
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Authors and funding
4 authors at 3 institutions in 3 countries.
Funding
Abstract
Reaction time is accelerated if a loud (startling) sound accompanies the cue-the "StartReact" effect. Animal studies revealed a reticulospinal substrate for the startle reflex; StartReact may similarly involve the reticulospinal tract, but this is currently uncertain. Here we trained two female macaque monkeys to perform elbow flexion/extension movements following a visual cue. The cue was sometimes accompanied by a loud sound, generating a StartReact effect in electromyogram response latency, as seen in humans. Extracellular recordings were made from antidromically identified corticospinal neurons in primary motor cortex (M1), from the reticular formation (RF), and from the spinal cord (SC; C5-C8 segments). After loud sound, task-related activity was suppressed in M1 (latency, 70-200 ms after cue), but was initially enhanced (70-80 ms) and then suppressed (140-210 ms) in RF. SC activity was unchanged. In a computational model, we simulated a motoneuron pool receiving input from different proportions of the average M1 and RF activity recorded experimentally. Motoneuron firing generated simulated electromyogram, allowing reaction time measurements. Only if ≥60% of motoneuron drive came from RF (≤40% from M1) did loud sound shorten reaction time. The extent of shortening increased as more drive came from RF. If RF provided <60% of drive, loud sound lengthened the reaction time-the opposite of experimental findings. The majority of the drive for voluntary movements is thus likely to originate from the brainstem, not the cortex; changes in the magnitude of the StartReact effect can measure a shift in the relative importance of descending systems.
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Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.