The DOI matches its Crossref record; 53 of the 53 references it cites were found in a registry or an index.
Age-related changes in motor unit firing pattern of vastus lateralis muscle during low-moderate contraction
Open accessAbstract
Age-related changes in motor unit activation properties remain unclear for locomotor muscles such as quadriceps muscles, although these muscles are preferentially atrophied with aging and play important roles in daily living movements. The present study investigated and compared detailed motor unit firing characteristics for the vastus lateralis muscle during isometric contraction at low to moderate force levels in the elderly and young. Fourteen healthy elderly men and 15 healthy young men performed isometric ramp-up contraction to 70 % of the maximal voluntary contractions (MVC) during knee extension. Multichannel surface electromyograms were recorded from the vastus lateralis muscle using a two-dimensional grid of 64 electrodes and decomposed with the convolution kernel compensation technique to extract individual motor units. Motor unit firing rates in the young were significantly higher (~+29.7 %) than in the elderly (p < 0.05). There were significant differences in firing rates among motor units with different recruitment thresholds at each force level in the young (p < 0.05) but not in the elderly (p > 0.05). Firing rates at 60 % of the MVC force level for the motor units recruited at <20 % of MVC were significantly correlated with MVC force in the elderly (r = 0.885, p < 0.0001) but not in the young (r = 0.127, p > 0.05). These results suggest that the motor unit firing rate in the vastus lateralis muscle is affected by aging and muscle strength in the elderly and/or age-related strength loss is related to motor unit firing/recruitment properties.
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“We followed the decomposition procedure that was previously extensively validated on signals from various skeletal muscles (7,17,21,25–28).”
From Modulation of Neural and Muscular Adaptation Processes During Resistance Training by Fish Protein Ingestions in Older Adults (2020) · cites this paper as [7]
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“Our studies also demonstrated that in older adults, the maximal muscle strength are positively correlated with motor unit firing rate (7) and both muscle thickness and surface electromyography (EMG) amplitudes (8).”
From Modulation of Neural and Muscular Adaptation Processes During Resistance Training by Fish Protein Ingestions in Older Adults (2020) · cites this paper as [7]
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“Significant differences in firing rate among the motor units with different recruitment thresholds are normally presented in young adults (7) and this is known as onion skin phenomenon (39,40).”
From Modulation of Neural and Muscular Adaptation Processes During Resistance Training by Fish Protein Ingestions in Older Adults (2020) · cites this paper as [7]
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“This age-related change in relationship in firing rate among different motor unit groups may be muscle specific and can be explained by decrease in the firing rate of low-recruitment threshold motor units in older adults (7).”
From Modulation of Neural and Muscular Adaptation Processes During Resistance Training by Fish Protein Ingestions in Older Adults (2020) · cites this paper as [7]
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“However, this structure is changed in older adults where firing rates among the motor units with different recruitment thresholds start to overlap (7).”
From Modulation of Neural and Muscular Adaptation Processes During Resistance Training by Fish Protein Ingestions in Older Adults (2020) · cites this paper as [7]
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“We excluded the discharges with interdischarge intervals < 33.3 or >250 ms because firing rates that calculated from this range of interdischarge intervals are unusually high (>30 Hz) or low (<4 Hz) for the VL muscle (7,20,21,30,31).”
From Modulation of Neural and Muscular Adaptation Processes During Resistance Training by Fish Protein Ingestions in Older Adults (2020) · cites this paper as [7]
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“These procedures for calculating motor unit firing rates had been previously used in our studies (7,17,20).”
From Modulation of Neural and Muscular Adaptation Processes During Resistance Training by Fish Protein Ingestions in Older Adults (2020) · cites this paper as [7]
In the citing paper
“Our previous study identified a positive correlation between motor unit firing pattern of the vastus lateralis (VL) muscle and MVC force of the quadriceps femoris muscles in the elderly (Watanabe et al., 2016).”
From Effect of resistance training and fish protein intake on motor unit firing pattern and motor function of elderly (2018) · cites this paper as Watanabe et al., 2016
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“From the results of the present and previous studies, we suggest that the response of low-recruitment threshold motor units might be more plastic to the effect of resistance training and aging.”
From Effect of resistance training and fish protein intake on motor unit firing pattern and motor function of elderly (2018) · cites this paper as Watanabe et al., 2016
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Citations
Cites
The extraction of neural strategies from the surface EMG
Farina, D., Merletti, R., & Enoka, R. M. (2004) · Journal of Applied Physiology · doi:10.1152/japplphysiol.01070.2003 · Cited by 1,573
Mitchell, W. K., Williams, J., Atherton, P., Larvin, M., Lund, J., & Narici, M. (2012) · Frontiers in Physiology · doi:10.3389/fphys.2012.00260 · Cited by 1,377
Models of recruitment and rate coding organization in motor-unit pools.
Fuglevand, A. J., Winter, D. A., & Patla, A. E. (1993) · Journal of Neurophysiology · doi:10.1152/jn.1993.70.6.2470 · Cited by 988 · cited 1×
“Mean firing rates with >30 % coefficient of variation were excluded for further analysis (Fuglevand et al. 1993).”
BackgroundBehaviour of human motor units in different muscles during linearly varying contractions
de Luca, C. J., LeFever, R. S., McCue, M. P., & Xenakis, A. P. (1982) · The Journal of Physiology · doi:10.1113/jphysiol.1982.sp014293 · Cited by 719
Effects of Aging on Muscle Fibre Type and Size
Deschenes, M. R. (2004) · Sports Medicine · doi:10.2165/00007256-200434120-00002 · Cited by 671
Holobar, A., Minetto, M. A., & Farina, D. (2014) · Journal of Neural Engineering · doi:10.1088/1741-2560/11/1/016008 · Cited by 400
Self-citationDecoding the neural drive to muscles from the surface electromyogram
Farina, D., Holobar, A., Merletti, R., & Enoka, R. M. (2010) · Clinical Neurophysiology · doi:10.1016/j.clinph.2009.10.040 · Cited by 383
Self-citationPotential for gross muscle hypertrophy in older men
Moritani, T., & Devries, H. A. (1980) · Journal of Gerontology · doi:10.1093/geronj/35.5.672 · Cited by 362 · cited 1×
“…in the elderly has been considered since the first observation of greater improvement in neural factors , which is estimated from the surface EMG amplitude , with little muscle hypertrophy during resistance training for the elderly , reported by Moritani and deVries ( Moritani and deVries 1980 ) .”
BackgroundSelf-citationAnalysis of motor units with high-density surface electromyography
Merletti, R., Holobar, A., & Farina, D. (2008) · Journal of Electromyography and Kinesiology · doi:10.1016/j.jelekin.2008.09.002 · Cited by 351
Self-citationDistribution of different fibre types in human skeletal muscles
Lexell, J. E., Downham, D. Y., & Sjöstróm, M. (1986) · Journal of the Neurological Sciences · doi:10.1016/0022-510x(86)90009-2 · Cited by 342
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Valenzuela, P. L., Castillo‐García, A., Morales, J. S., Izquierdo, M., Serra‐Rexach, J. A., Santos‐Lozano, A., & Lucia, A. (2019) · Comprehensive Physiology · doi:10.1002/cphy.c190002 · Cited by 152
Chen, C., Ma, S., Sheng, X., Farina, D., & Zhu, X. (2020) · IEEE Transactions on Biomedical Engineering · doi:10.1109/tbme.2020.2989311 · Cited by 104
Glaser, V., & Holobar, A. (2018) · IEEE Transactions on Neural Systems and Rehabilitation Engineering · doi:10.1109/tnsre.2018.2885283 · Cited by 96
Self-citationCentral and Peripheral Neuromuscular Adaptations to Ageing
Borzuola, R., Giombini, A., Torre, G., Campi, S., Albo, E., Bravi, M., Borrione, P., FOSSATI, C., & Macaluso, A. (2020) · Journal of Clinical Medicine · doi:10.3390/jcm9030741 · Cited by 91
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Metadata
- Authors
- Watanabe, K., Holobar, A., Kouzaki, M., Ogawa, M., Akima, H., & Moritani, T.
- Affiliations
- Chukyo University (JP)
- University of Maribor (SI)
- Kyoto University (JP)
- Research Center of Health, Physical Fitness and Sports, Nagoya University (JP)
- Corresponding author
- Watanabe, Kohei
- Venue
- AGE
- Published
- 2016-04-15
- Volume
- 38
- Issue
- 3
- Pages
- 48-48
- ISSN
- 0161-9152 (ISSN-L)
- 1574-4647
- PMC
- PMC5005913
- OpenAlex
- W2338519442
- Cited by
- 115
- References
- 53
- Citations by year
- 2026: 8 · 2025: 11 · 2024: 16 · 2023: 15 · 2022: 13 · 2021: 10 · 2020: 16 · 2019: 9 · 2018: 13 · 2017: 4
- FWCI
- 4.17
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- bronze
- doi.org
- Licence
- www.springer.com/tdm (tdm)
- Locations
- AGE (publishedVersion)
- Europe PMC (PubMed Central) (publishedVersion)
- PubMed Central (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Funders
- Javna Agencija za Raziskovalno Dejavnost RS (L5-5550)
- Council for Science, Technology and Innovation
- Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (14533567, 26750309)
- Bio-oriented Technology Research Advancement Institution
- Topics
- Physical Sciences › Engineering › Biomedical Engineering › Muscle activation and electromyography studies
- Life Sciences › Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology › Molecular Biology › Muscle Physiology and Disorders
- Health Sciences › Medicine › Physiology (medical) › Nutrition and Health in Aging
- Keywords
- motor unit firing rate, vastus lateralis, aging, older adults, isometric contraction, motor unit recruitment, muscle strength decline, quadriceps, surface electromyography, motor unit decomposition, knee extension
- MeSH terms
- Adult, Aged, Aged, 80 and over, Aging, Electromyography, Humans, Isometric Contraction, Male, Middle Aged, Recruitment, Neurophysiological, Muscle Fatigue, Quadriceps Muscle, Muscle Strength
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