Fatiguing stimulation of one skeletal muscle triggers heat shock protein activation in several rat organs: the role of muscle innervation

Non-local Muscle Fatigue Effects on Muscle Strength, Power, and Endurance in Healthy Individuals: A Systematic Review with Meta-analysis

BACKGROUND

The fatigue of a muscle or muscle group can produce global responses to a variety of systems (i.e., cardiovascular, endocrine, and others). There are also reported strength and endurance impairments of non-exercised muscles following the fatigue of another muscle; however, the literature is inconsistent.

OBJECTIVE

To examine whether non-local muscle fatigue (NLMF) occurs following the performance of a fatiguing bout of exercise of a different muscle(s).

DESIGN

Systematic review and meta-analysis.

SEARCH AND INCLUSION

A systematic literature search using a Boolean search strategy was conducted with PubMed, SPORTDiscus, Web of Science, and Google Scholar in April 2020, and was supplemented with additional 'snowballing' searches up to September 2020. To be included in our analysis, studies had to include at least one intentional performance measure (i.e., strength, endurance, or power), which if reduced could be considered evidence of muscle fatigue, and also had to include the implementation of a fatiguing protocol to a location (i.e., limb or limbs) that differed to those for which performance was measured. We excluded studies that measured only mechanistic variables such as electromyographic activity, or spinal/supraspinal excitability. After search and screening, 52 studies were eligible for inclusion including 57 groups of participants (median sample = 11) and a total of 303 participants.

RESULTS

The main multilevel meta-analysis model including all effects sizes (278 across 50 clusters [median = 4, range = 1 to 18 effects per cluster) revealed a trivial point estimate with high precision for the interval estimate [- 0.02 (95% CIs = - 0.14 to 0.09)], yet with substantial heterogeneity (Q₍₂₇₇₎ = 642.3, p < 0.01), I² = 67.4%). Subgroup and meta-regression analyses showed that NLMF effects were not moderated by study design (between vs. within-participant), homologous vs. heterologous effects, upper or lower body effects, participant training status, sex, age, the time of post-fatigue protocol measurement, or the severity of the fatigue protocol. However, there did appear to be an effect of type of outcome measure where both strength [0.11 (95% CIs = 0.01-0.21)] and power outcomes had trivial effects [- 0.01 (95% CIs = - 0.24 to 0.22)], whereas endurance outcomes showed moderate albeit imprecise effects [- 0.54 (95% CIs = - 0.95 to - 0.14)].

CONCLUSIONS

Overall, the findings do not support the existence of a general NLMF effect; however, when examining specific types of performance outcomes, there may be an effect specifically upon endurance-based outcomes (i.e., time to task failure). However, there are relatively fewer studies that have examined endurance effects or mechanisms explaining this possible effect, in addition to fewer studies including women or younger and older participants, and considering causal effects of prior training history through the use of longitudinal intervention study designs. Thus, it seems pertinent that future research on NLMF effects should be redirected towards these still relatively unexplored areas.

Exposure to extremely low frequency electromagnetic fields alters the behaviour, physiology and stress protein levels of desert locusts

Electromagnetic fields (EMFs) are present throughout the modern world and are derived from many man-made sources including overhead transmission lines. The risks of extremely-low frequency (ELF) electromagnetic fields are particularly poorly understood especially at high field strengths as they are rarely encountered at ground level. Flying insects, however, can approach close to high field strength transmission lines prompting the question as to how these high levels of exposure affect behaviour and physiology. Here we utilise the accessible nervous system of the locust to ask how exposure to high levels of ELF EMF impact at multiple levels. We show that exposure to ELF EMFs above 4 mT leads to reduced walking. Moreover, intracellular recordings from an identified motor neuron, the fast extensor tibiae motor neuron, show increased spike latency and a broadening of its spike in exposed animals. In addition, hind leg kick force, produced by stimulating the extensor tibiae muscle, was reduced following exposure, while stress-protein levels (Hsp70) increased. Together these results suggest that ELF EMF exposure has the capacity to cause dramatic effects from behaviour to physiology and protein expression, and this study lays the foundation to explore the ecological significance of these effects in other flying insects.

The mechanisms of the widespread production of phosphorylated HSP25 after fatiguing muscle stimulation

We previously showed that a widespread heat shock protein (HSP) response to fatigue of a single hindlimb muscle was responsible for a global adaptive response to an acute localized stress. We also demonstrated that the HSP response resulted from the activation of nerve afferents from the stimulated muscle. However, we did not examine the role played by the different muscle afferents or the efferent arm of HSP response. In the present study we measured the changes in phosphorylated HSP25 (pHSP25) levels in resting hindlimb muscles and the diaphragm, kidney and brain in response to a fatiguing stimulation of one tibialis anterior muscle that was repeated in five series of experiments: (1) intact muscle innervation, (2) during the selective procaine block of conduction in group IV muscle afferents, (3) after muscle nerve transection to suppress all the sensory messages, and under pharmacological blockade of the (4) alpha-adrenergic or (5) glutamatergic neurotransmission. The data showed that: (1) the pHSP25 response in hindlimb muscles resulted from the stimulation of both group III and IV muscle afferents while the pHSP25 response in the diaphragm, kidney and brain resulted from the sole activation of the group IV fibres, and (2) the blockade of alpha-adrenergic, but not glutamatergic, neurotransmission suppressed the pHSP25 response in all explored tissues except the brain. The present study highlights the role played by the group III and IV muscle afferents in the fatigue-induced pHSP25 response and shows that the sympathetic nerve supply to the muscles and kidney represents the efferent arm of the pHSP25 activation. However, the pHSP25 changes in the brain cannot be explained by the pathways investigated here.