We directly measured cardiac vagal efferent nerve activity (CVNA) and cardiac sympathetic efferent nerve activity (CSNA) in cats decerebrated at the level of the precollicular-premammillary body while the hindlimb or the triceps surae muscle was passively stretched. CVNA gradually decreased during passive stretch of the hindlimb, and this decrease was sustained throughout the stretch. CSNA incr...

Muscle force during active lengthening was characterized for scaphognathite levator muscle L2B from the crab Carcinus maenas. The muscle was tetanically stimulated and, during the peak of the contraction, stretched at constant velocity. The total strain was approximately 4 %, the strain rates ranged from 0.03 to 1.6 muscle lengths s-1 (L s-1), and the temperature was 15 degreesC. Force increase...

Eng, Janice J. and J. A. Hoffer. Regional variability of stretch length (Hoffer et al. 1989, 1992). During active movements, reflex amplitude in the cat medial gastrocnemius muscle during a extrafusal fibers can shorten while the muscle is lengthening postural task. J. Neurophysiol. 78: 1150–1154, 1997. The relationand vice-versa, and thus muscle spindle lengths cannot be ship between local fib...

OBJECTIVE To quantify dynamic spasticity, i.e. the coupling between muscle-tendon stretch velocity and muscle activity during gait, of the gastrocnemius and soleus muscles in children with spastic cerebral palsy. DESIGN Prospective, cross-sectional study. SUBJECTS Seventeen ambulatory children with cerebral palsy with spastic calf muscles, and 11 matched typically developing children. MET...

Several studies from our laboratory show that axial stretch of the lower esophageal sphincter (LES) in an oral direction causes neurally mediated LES relaxation. Under physiological conditions, axial stretch of the LES is caused by longitudinal muscle contraction (LMC) of the esophagus. Because longitudinal muscle is composed of skeletal muscle in mice, vagal-induced LMC and LES relaxation are ...

OBJECTIVES Stretch affects vascular smooth muscle cell proliferation and apoptosis, and several responsible genes have been proposed. We tested whether the expression of microRNA 21 (miR-21) is modulated by stretch and is involved in stretch-induced proliferation and apoptosis of human aortic smooth muscle cells (HASMCs). METHODS AND RESULTS RT-PCR revealed that elevated stretch (16% elongati...

Quinn, Timothy P., Marielle Schlueter, Scott J. Soifer, and Jorge A. Gutierrez. Cyclic mechanical stretch induces VEGF and FGF-2 expression in pulmonary vascular smooth muscle cells. Am J Physiol Lung Cell Mol Physiol 282: L897–L903, 2002. First published October 26, 2001; 10.1152/ajplung.00044.2001.—Vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) and basic (b) fibroblast growth factor (FGF-2/ bFGF) ...

© 2010 The Authors. doi: 10.2340/16501977-0579 Journal Compilation © 2010 Foundation of Rehabilitation Information. ISSN 1650-1977 Objective: To quantify dynamic spasticity, i.e. the coupling between muscle-tendon stretch velocity and muscle activity during gait, of the gastrocnemius and soleus muscles in children with spastic cerebral palsy. Design: Prospective, cross-sectional study. Subjects...

Stretch of vascular smooth muscle stimulates growth and proliferation as well as contraction and expression of contractile/cytoskeletal proteins, all of which are also regulated by calcium-dependent signals. We studied the role of the calcium- and integrin-activated proline-rich tyrosine kinase 2 (PYK2) in stretch-induced responses of the rat portal vein loaded by a hanging weight ex vivo. PYK2...