Slow changes and Wiener analysis of nonlinear summation in contractions in cat muscles

Abstract

With regular trains of stimuli at a high frequency, the contribution of each stimulus to the force generated over time declines from the second to about the tenth stimulus, but then begins to increase again. This late increase is referred to as tetanic potentiation in analogy with the post-tetanic potentiation of the twitch after such a period of stimulation. With regular trains of stimuli at a low frequency, a progressive decrease in the essentially unfused twitches (negative staircase) is observed in the slow soleus muscle of the cat, while a progressive increase (positive staircase) is observed for the fast plantaris muscle. The time constant for the approximately exponential changes observed is on the order of 10 s. Random trains of stimuli were applied at intermediate frequencies and analyzed in terms of general methods of analysis for nonlinear systems. Systematic decreases in the magnitude and increases in the time course of the average tension per stimulus were observed with increasing mean rates of stimulation. Similar changes were observed for short intervals between stimuli within a given random train at a constant mean rate. These changes can be described in terms of an early depression and a later facilitation described in the previous papers in this series.