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Receptors in Muscles and Joints

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The Peripheral Nervous System

Abstract

Throughout the vertebrata, skeletal muscles are found to be provided with sensory receptors, as also appears to be the case for the joints upon which they act. The function of these receptors is to provide the central nervous system with information about the mechanical state of the body and thus to assist in the central control of muscle action. An engineer faced with the problem of controlling a motor of variable strength working into a variety of loads would undoubtedly incorporate feedback elements to monitor its performance, particularly if the motor were as nonlinear in its input-output relation as is skeletal muscle. Evolution would also appear to have long favored the use of feedback to achieve precision of action and has quite possibly brought about the development of control mechanisms that are more refined than any yet invented by man; at present, physiologists are mostly content with pointing out the analogy between biological control systems and engineered ones, rather than seeking novel principles in the biological ones. It is thus of some interest to describe the various biological transducers which provide the feedback information required for muscle control, even though we cannot yet specify the precise ways this information is used by the CNS.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. University Laboratory of Physiology, Oxford University, Oxford, England

    P. B. C. Matthews

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  1. P. B. C. Matthews
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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Physiology, University of Otago, Dunedin, New Zealand

    John I. Hubbard

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© 1974 Plenum Press, New York

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Matthews, P.B.C. (1974). Receptors in Muscles and Joints. In: Hubbard, J.I. (eds) The Peripheral Nervous System. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4615-8699-9_16

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4615-8699-9_16

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Boston, MA

  • Print ISBN: 978-1-4615-8701-9

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