Science coming to life About the Muscles Alive! Program
Muscles Alive! is a neuroscience educational outreach program. It is an extension of research topics and techniques used in the Neuromuscular Function Lab at Colorado State University. The program uses hands-on, kid-friendly equipment to perform experiential demonstrations to teach 4th – 12th graders about how their brain communicates with their muscles and how their muscles communicate with their brain. Participants get to see, hear, record, and experience their own brain’s command of the muscle and experience very robust, fun, and attention-getting illusions and phenomena related to reflexes and proprioception (ability to sense the position and orientation and movement of one’s body).
Muscles Alive!, named as an homage to the classic EMG text, was created in 2012 to bring Colorado State University experiential neuroscience outreach to students of all ages in Colorado and beyond.
What to expect:
- Improved neuroscience education will 1) enhance scientific literacy in the general population, and 2) inspire future neuroscientists.
- Interactive, immersive, fun science education is more engaging for students.
- The transmission of information via combined experiential, observational, auditory, and visual modes better serves diverse learning styles.
- The PI’s collaboration with Backyard Brains, Inc., produced the EMG Spikerbox, allowing inexpensive and portable electromyogram recordings for the first time.
- Participants see and hear their electromyogram in real-time while they activate their own muscles. They experience the brain’s signal to the muscles.
Program Snapshot:
- Target Populations: College Students, Continuing Education, High School Students, K-5 Students, Middle School Students, The Public
- Program Type: Department Outreach stand-alone program
- Instructional Delivery Methods: Demonstration or simulation, Inquiry/hands-on
- Participation Fees: Free Program
- Collaboration Opportunities: New members of the target population(s) can get involved/participate in the program. CSU researchers can collaborate with research or evaluation.
The Equipment
What we offer Lessons for Every Learner
Demonstrations for All Ages
- Intrinsic hand muscles – finger abduction and adduction
- Extrinsic hand muscles – finger flexion/extension, handgrip
- Jaw muscles – masseter, temporalis – the EMG of mastication
- Facial muscles – the EMG of smiling, frowning, kissing, and winking
- Can you flare your nostrils? – EMG of the nasalis muscle
- Can you wiggle your ears? – the EMG of the auricularis muscle
- Large arm muscles – the EMG of arm wrestling
- Large leg muscles – the sewing machine leg, jumping, squatting
- Stretch reflex timing – the EMG of the knee jerk reflex
- Abdominal muscles – the EMG of laughing
- Laryngeal muscles – the EMG of beatboxing
- Single motor unit recordings – alpha motor neuron discharge behavior
- Muscle activation during yoga postures
- The Phantom Limb – biceps brachii tonic vibration reflex
- The Neurophysiology Trust Fall – proprioceptive illusion
Elementary School
- Your brain controls your muscles by sending electrical messages
- Muscles have electrical messages too
- Your brain has 86 billion cells
- Your muscles SEND messages TO your brain
- Everything you do takes muscles and muscle electricity
Middle School
- The motor part of your brain becomes active when you want to move a muscle
- The nerve cells generate tiny electrical messages that travel very fast
- The messages go out of your brain, down your spinal cord, and out the nerves to muscles – all with electrical messages
- Muscle fibers generate electrical messages that are similar to those generated by neurons
- Neurons and muscle fibers are special because they are excitable cells
- Tiny sensors in your muscles SEND messages TO your brain – these messages are part of reflexes (automatic)
- The sensors also tell your brain the length of your muscles and the position of your body
- Your brain turns these electrical messages into a perception of body movement
- The brain generates automatic reflexes that keep you standing without you having to think.
High School
- Specific parts of the motor cortex are devoted to specific muscles.
- Cells in the motor cortex fire faster when you want to contract more strongly; greater descending command produces greater EMG in muscle and greater muscle force
- Messages exit the brain in specific pathways (large numbers of upper motor neurons)
- Lower motor neurons receive the messages, travel out the peripheral nerves, and innervate muscle fibers
- Electrical potentials on muscle fibers precede calcium release into cells, which causes the contraction of muscle fibers
- Muscle spindles are very sensitive, provide the stretch reflex, enhance resting muscle tension, and provide the critical proprioceptive message to the brain
- Deeper brain regions govern automatic postural reflexes you don’t have to think about, while other parts of your brain are voluntary, less automatic, and govern more complex motor functions.
University-Level Classrooms
- Motor unit recruitment, discharge rate
- Multi-joint actions of single muscles
- Hands-on – listen to your own EMG
- Tendon tap reflex – see the EMG response
- Single motor unit discharge behavior