Related Experiment Video
Updated: Mar 20, 2026
Bilateral Assessment of the Corticospinal Pathways of the Ankle Muscles Using Navigated Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation
Published on: February 19, 2019
Effects of movement-related afferent inputs on spinal reflexes evoked by transcutaneous spinal cord stimulation
Yohei Masugi1, Noritaka Kawashima1, Daisuke Inoue2
1Department of Rehabilitation for Movement Functions, Research Institute of the National Rehabilitation Center for Persons with Disabilities, 4-1 Namiki, Tokorozawa, Saitama 359-8555, Japan.
Abstract:
Studies of robot-assisted passive stepping paradigms have reported that movement-related afferent inputs strongly inhibit the excitability of the Hoffmann (H) reflex in the soleus (Sol) during walking. However, it is unknown if movement-related afferent inputs have the same effect on the excitability of spinal reflexes in the other lower-limb muscles that are involved in normal walking in healthy subjects. The aim of this study was to examine the effects of movement-related afferent inputs on the spinal reflexes in lower-limb muscles during walking. Spinal reflexes that were elicited by transcutaneous spinal cord stimulation (tSCS) were recorded during passive air standing and air stepping at three stepping velocities (stride frequencies: 14, 25, and 36 strides/min). The amplitude of the spinal reflexes was reduced in most of the recorded muscles during passive air stepping compared with air standing. Furthermore, in the Sol and lateral gastrocnemius, the amplitude of the reflexes during air stepping significantly decreased as stride frequency increased. These results demonstrate that movement-related afferent inputs inhibit spinal reflexes in the Sol and other lower-limb muscles during walking.
