Muscles Alive!

Science coming to life About the Muscles Alive! Program

Muscles Alive! is an experiential neuroscience education outreach program as an outreach arm of the Neuromuscular Function Laboratory (Brian L. Tracy, Ph.D., Director) in the Department of Health and Exercise Science at Colorado State University. The program is an extension of some of lab research techniques, designed to educate community members from pre-K to gray.

Our program

The program uses hands-on, kid-friendly equipment to carry out experiential demonstrations with youth on how the brain communicates with muscles and how muscles communicate with their brain. Participants get to

See, hear, measure, and experience their own brain’s commands sent to muscles
Experience robust, very fun, and attention-getting illusions and phenomena related to reflexes and proprioception (the ability to sense the position, orientation, and movement of one’s body)
Participate in engaging demonstrations of measurement of body movement via a smartphone application.

Why we do this:

Improved neuroscience education will enhance scientific literacy and interest in science for community members, and inspire future neuroscientists.
Interactive, immersive, fun science education is more engaging for students.
Our demos transmit information via experiential, highly participatory, observational, auditory, tactile, and visual modes to better serve diverse learning styles and increase our reach to all kinds of learners.
Dr. Tracy’s collaboration with Backyard Brains, Inc., produced the Human EMG Spikerbox, allowing inexpensive, portable, and accessible electromyogram recordings for the first time. The Spikerbox is a centerpiece of the Muscles Alive! program.
Participants see and hear their electromyogram in real-time while they activate their own muscles. They experience their own brain’s signal to the muscles.
Students can do experiments on each other, with supervision, which increases engagement.

Program Snapshot:

Target Populations: K-12 students, Community Members, Continuing Education, College Students.
Program Type: Department Outreach stand-alone program
Instructional Delivery Methods: Demonstration or simulation, Inquiry/hands-on
Collaboration Opportunities: We are actively seeking to collaborate with public or private intramural, statewide, national, or international partners to increase the reach of Muscles Alive!

The Equipment

Motor Signals To Muscle

The Human EMG Spikerbox with electrode leads and cables (Backyard Brains, Inc.)
Electrodes (Popsicle sticks and brass brads, or adhesive ECG electrodes), foil ground strap
Audio Speaker
iPod Touch, iPhone, iPad, Android – running the free Backyard Brains App (visual display)
Human-to-Human Interface kit. One person’s EMG controls another person’s movement

Proprioceptive Sensory Signals From Muscle

Handheld, vibrating massagers, applied to tendons in controlled settings

Smartphone Movement Sensing

iPod Touch or iPhones are used to sense and record human movement using a free application

What we offer Lessons for Every Learner

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

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

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.

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.