title: Duty time of rabbit jaw muscles varies with the number of activity bursts.
abstract: The relative duration of muscle activity during a specified period (duty time) varies depending on activity level and time of the day. Since both the number and the length of activity bursts contribute to the duty time, it was hypothesized that these variables would show intra-day variations similar to those of the duty time. To test this, we determined duty times, burst numbers, and burst lengths per hour, in relation to multiple activity levels, in a 24-hour period of concurrent radio-telemetric long-term electromyograms of various rabbit jaw muscles. The marked intra-day variation of the burst number resembled that of the duty time in all muscles, and was in contrast to the relatively invariable mean burst length. Furthermore, the duty times were more highly correlated with the number than with the length of bursts at all activity levels. Thus, the variation of the duty time in rabbit jaw muscles is caused mainly by changes in burst numbers.
authors.affiliation: Department of Orthodontics, Academic Center for Dentistry Amsterdam, Universiteit van Amsterdam, The Netherlands. t.gruenheid@acta.nl
authors.forename: T
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Grünheid
authors.forename: G E J
authors.initials: GE
authors.lastname: Langenbach
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Zentner
authors.forename: T M G J
authors.initials: TM
authors.lastname: Van Eijden
mesh_terms: D000200:Action Potentials / Q000502:physiology; D000818:Animals; D002940:Circadian Rhythm / Q000502:physiology; D004576:Electromyography; D008297:Male; D008406:Masseter Muscle / Q000502:physiology; D008410:Masticatory Muscles / Q000502:physiology*; D009119:Muscle Contraction / Q000502:physiology; D009126:Muscle Relaxation / Q000502:physiology; D009334:Neck Muscles / Q000502:physiology; D011626:Pterygoid Muscles / Q000502:physiology; D011817:Rabbits; D012815:Signal Processing, Computer-Assisted; D013686:Telemetry; D013997:Time Factors