Innervation ratio and motor unit force in large muscles: a study of chronically stimulated cat medial gastrocnemius.

1. The present study uses chronic low frequency stimulation of cat medial gastrocnemius (MG) muscle to investigate the relative contribution of innervation ratio to the wide range of motor unit force in large mammalian muscles by reducing the normal variation in muscle fibre cross-sectional area and specific force. 2. Isometric force recordings from isolated and physiologically characterized motor units were made 42-240 days after stimulation. Innervation ratio, fibre area and fibre type (I, II A, II B) were determined in one glycogen-depleted motor unit per muscle. 3. After 42 days of stimulation, all motor units were non-fatigable and were classified as either slow (S) or fast-fatigue resistant (FR). Despite the absence of fast-fatigable (FF) motor units, all three muscle fibre types were present, as identified according to their myofibrillar ATPase reactivity. After 143 days, all motor units and muscle fibres were classified as type S and type I, respectively. 4. A rapid decline in muscle and motor unit force to 30% of normal values after 42 days of chronic stimulation was accounted for by a reduction in muscle fibre area. Fibre areas did not change further with longer periods of stimulation but type II fibres were converted to type I. All stimulated muscle fibres were the size of normal type I fibres; the size of the fibres within single motor units covered the full range of the muscle fibre population. 5. In long-term stimulated muscles (> 100 days) when all muscle fibres were type I and all motor units type S, only differences in innervation ratio could account for the remaining range in motor unit force. Estimates of this range from the minimum and maximum values recorded and from values of tetanic force between the 5th and 95th percentiles indicate that the range in innervation ratio in the MG muscles is at least 15-fold and may be as large as 38-fold. Enumerations of glycogen-depleted muscle fibres from single motor units were consistent with this explanation. 6. The findings provide evidence that there is a wide range of innervation ratios in large muscles, which can account for the large range in motor unit forces in the muscles. Since motor unit force and innervation ratio vary with motoneurone size, these studies provide further support that the size of the peripheral field of innervation of motoneurones is related to their size.