Contractile properties of human nasal dilator motor units

The technique of intramuscular microstimulation was used to activate facial nerve fibers while acquiring simultaneous twitch force measurements to measure the contractile properties and force-frequency responses of human nasal dilator (ND) motor units. Twitch force amplitude (TF), contraction time (CT), half-relaxation time (HRT), and the maximal rate of rise of force normalized to the peak force (maximum contraction rate, MCR) were recorded from 98 ND motor units in 37 subjects. The average CT, HRT, MCR, and TF were 47.9 +/- 1.8 ms, 42.6 +/- 2.1 ms, 28.6 +/- 1.8 s-1, and 1.06 +/- 0.1 mN, respectively. Neither CT nor HRT were significantly correlated with TF. The average CT and HRT were similar to values recorded for small muscles of the hand but were faster than the values recorded from human toe extensor motor units. However the lack of an association between twitch force and CT or HRT was similar to the findings obtained for both human hand and foot muscles. Force-frequency curves were recorded from eight ND motor units. The force produced by the eight motor units was recorded in response to stimuli delivered at 1, 5, 10, 15, 20, 25, 30, 35, and 40 Hz to assess force-frequency relationships. The mean twitch force of the eight motor units was 0.91 +/- 0.3 mN and the average tetanic force was 8.1 +/- 1.8 mN. Therefore the average twitch force was equal to 12.7% of the tetanic force. Fifty percent of the unit tetanic force was achieved at an average frequency of 16. 4 +/- 1.7 Hz, which is greater than the value recorded for human toe extensor motor units (9.6 Hz). Thus the force produced by the ND motor units was more sensitive to changes in discharge frequency over the range of approximately 10-30 Hz and less sensitive to changes in the range of 0-10 Hz because of their fast contractile properties. The mean slope of the regression lines that were fit to the steep portion of each force-frequency curve was 5.15 +/- 0.5% change in force/Hz. This value was greater than the slope measured for human toe extensor muscles (4.2% change in force/Hz). These observations suggest that force gradation by ND motor units is more sensitive to changes in stimulation frequency than human toe extensor motor units. We conclude that most ND motor units have fast contractile properties and that rate coding may play a significant role in the gradation of force produced by the ND muscle. Furthermore, the findings of this investigation have demonstrated that contractile speed and TF in a human facial muscle are not correlated. This supports previous findings obtained from human hand and foot muscles and suggests that there may be a fundamental difference in the contractile speed-twitch force relationship between many human muscles and most muscles of other mammals.