[Hierarchy of nervous system structures in regulating muscle tone]

An analysis of mechanisms regulating the muscular tone, conducted on the basis of a study of the phylogenesis of nervous structures, as well as on experimental and clinical studies of the mascular tone in normal conditions and in pathology permitted to distinguish the following 6 levels of muscular regulation: segmento-peripheral, general suprasegmental, cerebellar-stem; pallidal, strial, cortical. The author discusses some clinical syndromes of disturbed muscular tone (parkinsonism, hormetonia, decerebrated regidity). It was demonstrated that each higher level exerts an inhibitory action on the lower level of muscular tone regulation and in this way there is a distinct ierarchy of the tone regulation. The ierarchy system of muscular tone regulation should be taken into consideration when determining the level of the nervous system lesions and in intervention in order to normalize the muscular tone.