title: Estimating post-synaptic potentials in tonically discharging human motoneurons.
abstract: The activity of single motor units in human muscles can be recorded with relative ease, and the spike train of a single motor unit precisely reflects the spike train of the parent motoneurone. This has led to the proposal of a number of methods to estimate stimulus-evoked post-synaptic potentials in human motoneurones. All of these methods rely on manipulating the spike trains of motor units over a number of trials. All are based on a number of assumptions, all have limitations, and none so far have passed the test of a direct comparison of the estimate of the shape of the post-synaptic potential with a direct intracellular measurement of it. These techniques are summarised in this review.
authors.affiliation: Department of Physiology, The University of Adelaide, Australia. tmiles@physiol.adelaide.edu.au
authors.forename: T S
authors.initials: TS
authors.lastname: Miles
mesh_terms: D004558:Electric Stimulation; D006801:Humans; D009046:Motor Neurons / Q000502:physiology*; D009435:Synaptic Transmission / Q000502:physiology*; D013979:Tibial Nerve / Q000502:physiology*