The Piper rhythm--a phenomenon related to muscle resonance characteristics?

The purpose of the present work is to examine the causes of the Piper rhythm, i.e. the tendency towards rhytmical 40-60 Hz grouping of motor unit potentials in steadily contracting human muscles. At weak or moderate contraction strength individual motor units exhibited preferred firing rates which were subharmonically related to the Piper rhythm in the gross EMG. Microelectrode muscle nerve recordings provided no support for the hypothesis that the Piper rhythm is dependent on resonance-induced rhythmical volleys of afferent spindle impulses causing reflex entrainment of motor impulses. This hypothesis also seems inconsistent with the findings that Piper rhythms of similar frequency appear in muscles with widely different mechanical properties and that the rhythms are about equally prominent in muscles with brisk as in muscles with weak or absent stretch reflexes. The results suggest that the Piper rhythm is dependent on some kind of pace-maker in the spinal cord or the cerebrum which tends to entrain and synchronize motor impulses.