ReviewThe Journal of physiology2025
Motor unit adaptation to disuse: crossing the threshold from firing rate suppression to neuromuscular junction transmission.
Review in The Journal of physiology, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 6 papers.
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Who cites it
6 citing papers in PubMed.
- Muscle fibre denervation in ageing.Clinical science (London, England : 1979) · 2026Review
- Exercise during 14 days of head down tilt bedrest attenuates motor unit impairments in older humans.Experimental physiology · 2026Article
- Bed rest and endurance retraining alter persistent inward current estimates in young and older males.Frontiers in physiology · 2026Article
- Relationship Between Quadriceps Neuromuscular Activity and Knee Extensor Strength at Four Months After ACL Reconstruction in High-Level Young Athletes.Orthopaedic journal of sports medicine · 2025Article
- Changes in motor unit conduction velocity after unilateral lower-limb suspension and active recovery are correlated with muscle ion channel gene expression.Experimental physiology · 2025Article
- Episodic denervation as a driver of loss of skeletal muscle redox homeostasis and muscle weakness in sarcopenia: Possible amelioration by exercise.Sports medicine and health science · 2025Review
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
1 author.
Funding
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Abstract
Neural conditioning to scenarios of muscle disuse is undoubtedly a cause of functional decrements that typically exceed losses of muscle size. Yet establishing the relative contribution of neural adaptation and the specific location in the motor pathway remains technically challenging. Several studies of healthy humans have targeted this system and have established that motor unit firing rate is suppressed following disuse, with a number of critical caveats. It is suppressed in the immobilized limb only, at relative and absolute force levels, and preferentially targets lower-threshold motor units. Concomitantly, electrophysiological investigation of neuromuscular junction transmission (NMJ) stability of lower-threshold motor units reveals minimal change following disuse. These findings contrast with numerous other methods, which show clear involvement of the NMJ but are unable to characterize the motor unit to which they belong. It is physiologically plausible that decrements observed following disuse are a result of suppressed firing rate of lower-threshold motor units and impairment of transmission of the NMJ of higher-threshold motor units. As such, motor units within the pool should be viewed in light of their varying susceptibility to disuse.
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