Neural activity states in different forms of physiological tremor. Facts and hypotheses

This paper attempts to combine (and thereby briefly review) various sets of physiological data in order to outline a qualitative model of the different states of stochastic neural activity underlying different forms of physiological tremor. Particular emphasis in put on spatial distributions of the properties of neural elements and their interconnexions , and on discharge characteristics of motor units and muscle spindle afferents including so-called "early discharges" and nonlinearities. It is argued that the wide variety of internal anatomical and functional structures of skeletal muscles and of their reflex organization must be considered when dealing with stability problems. Computer simulations of stochastic population models of the involved neuromuscular elements are advocated as means to investigate the relative importance of the many factors possibly contributing to stabilizing or de-stabilizing neuromuscular systems.