Motor units are important in the way a muscle works. What are they? Do all muscles have the same number of motor units? How would the number of motor units affect a muscle action?
Motor units are made up of motor neurons and the fibers of the skeletal muscle connected by the terminals of the axon of the respective motor neurons.
Motor units often work in groups in order regularly cooperate to organize the compression of a solitary muscle. The motor units as a whole inside a muscle are viewed as a motor pool.
The muscle fibers in the motor unit are all same. On activation of a motor unit, contraction occurs in all of its fiber.
In vertebrates, the muscle contraction force is governed by the number of motor units in active state.
The activation of greater number of motor neurons will lead to the activation of a greater number of muscle fibers and hence a stronger contraction of the muscle.
