Motor neuron 'bistability'. A pathogenetic mechanism for cramps and myokymia

Abstract

In three patients suffering from chronic muscle cramps, spasms and myokymia, these involuntary contractions were triggered in the triceps surae, quadriceps, flexor carpi radialis or flexor digitorum by means of single or short-train stimulation of homonymous Ia afferents, elicited by electrical means or tendon taps. In some cases cramp was induced by the first afferent volleys; more often, however, continued stimulation produced stepwise recruitment of motor units (whose rhythmic firing was visible as myokymia in the muscle) until cramp developed. Cramps and myokymic discharges could usually be terminated by a single maximal stimulus to the motor axons (producing antidromic invasion and Renshaw inhibition of the motor neurons), or by short trains of volleys in inhibitory pathways from the skin. The fact that it was possible to induce myokymia and cramps by brief synaptic excitation and terminate them by antidromic invasion or synaptic inhibition, suggests that the mechanism generating these disturbances is intrinsic to alpha-motor neuron somata. Similar on-off switching of self-sustained motor discharges has been observed in the decerebrate cat and is known to depend on 'bistability' of the motor neuron membrane. We propose that a similar mechanism is responsible for discharges that produce cramp.