Dependence of Latent Period in Muscle on Strength of Stimulus

Abstract

THE so-called latent period, which includes latency relaxation, has an important bearing on theories of excitation coupling. It is surprising then that systematic studies^1,2 of this phenomenon do not mention the role of the stimulus. The reason is that, with the frog sartorius, increasing strength of stimulus above twice the threshold value apparently produces no significant effect on the latency, while below this value the effects may conceivably be dismissed as due to ‘recruitment of fibres’. Even here, however, latency relaxation increases and may reach as much as 1 per cent of tetanus tension at ten times threshold field-strength.