Signalling Of Muscle Force By Golgi Tendon Organs During Exercise And Fatigue
Funder
National Health and Medical Research Council
Funding Amount
$181,320.00
Summary
It is a common experience for objects being carried to feel heavier and tasks needing muscular effort to become more difficult as one becomes tired and the muscles fatigue during exertion. The sensation of muscle force depends on two factors. One, a sense of the effort required to perform a task, is generated in the central nervous system and. The other, a sense of the force actually developed by the muscles, is generated in the muscles themselves by signals from sensory receptors called Golgi t ....It is a common experience for objects being carried to feel heavier and tasks needing muscular effort to become more difficult as one becomes tired and the muscles fatigue during exertion. The sensation of muscle force depends on two factors. One, a sense of the effort required to perform a task, is generated in the central nervous system and. The other, a sense of the force actually developed by the muscles, is generated in the muscles themselves by signals from sensory receptors called Golgi tendon organs. The sensation of muscle force and the heaviness of objects results from a combination of both senses, but the contribution of each is unknown. The aim of the project is to determine whether the disturbance of force sense in fatigued muscles results from changes in the way tendon organs signal the actual force developed by the muscles. This will be important for understanding how force sense is disturbed following exercise and in disease states, and for understanding the normal way muscle force is sensed in everyday situations. Disturbances of force sense after exercise will be documented in human subjects by asking them to generate what they perceive to be equal forces in both arms or legs, before and after one limb only is exercised. Errors in force estimation will show up as mismatches between the two limbs. The difficulty with human experiments is that the signals generated by tendon organs cannot be measured directly, but only inferred, perhaps wrongly. This difficulty will be overcome by measuring tendon organ activity directly in anaesthetised animals, where the muscles will be electrically stimulated to perform exercise similar to that in the human experiments. A change in tendon organ signalling will be taken to mean that similar changes in humans could be responsible for disturbances of force sense. In further experiments, the mechanism of the changes will be explored.Read moreRead less
Proprioception is how we sense the position of our joints, the movements of our joints, and the forces generated by our muscles. Disturbances of proprioception can cause major disruption of all movements and postures. We will undertake novel studies of how signals generated in the brain which command our movements contribute to all key aspects of proprioception. Finally we will unravel how the brain builds up the overall 'scheme' of our body which we need to make any accurate movement.
Role Of Condensin In Chromosome Organisation And Regulation
Funder
National Health and Medical Research Council
Funding Amount
$589,425.00
Summary
When a cell divides, its hereditary material (DNA) must be copied and equally segregated into each daughter cell. Our DNA is organised into a number of long units known as chromosomes. In order for our genetic material to be faithfully segregated into two daughter cells, the chromosomes must compact nearly 10,000 fold. A key component is condensin and we aim to find out how condensin directs the organisation and compaction of the mammalian chromosome.