Startle-triggered responses indicate reticulospinal drive is larger for voluntary shoulder versus finger movements

Recent primate studies have implicated a substantial role of reticulospinal pathways in the production of various voluntary movements. A novel way to assess the relative reticulospinal contributions in humans is through the use of a "StartReact" paradigm where a startling acoustic stimulus (SAS) is presented during a simple reaction time (RT) task. The StartReact response is characterized by short-latency triggering of a prepared response, which is attributed to increased reticulospinal drive associated with startle reflex activation. The current study used a StartReact protocol to examine differences in reticulospinal contributions between proximal and distal effectors by examining EMG onset latencies in lateral deltoid and first dorsal interosseous during bilateral shoulder or finger abduction. The magnitude of the StartReact effect, and thus relative reticulospinal drive, was quantified as the difference in RT between startle trials in which startle-reflex related EMG activation in the sternocleidomastoid (SCM) was present (SCM +) versus absent (SCM -). A significantly larger StartReact effect was observed for bilateral shoulder abduction versus bimanual finger abduction and a higher incidence of SCM + trials occurred in the proximal task. Additionally, both startle reflex and response-related EMG measures were larger on SCM + trials for the shoulder versus finger task. These results provide compelling novel evidence for increased reticulospinal activation in bilateral proximal upper-limb movements.