A NEW APPROACH TO THE ESTIMATION OF POSTSYNAPTIC POTENTIALS IN HUMAN MOTONEURONS

A new method is described for estimating the shape of the compound pos t-synaptic potentials evoked by stimuli in human motoneurones. The met hod is based on changes in the duration of the interspike intervals in motor-unit spike trains that are time-locked to the stimulus. This is particularly helpful in estimating the profile of long-latency slow r ise-time post-synaptic potentials that are difficult to estimate with other methods. The method is simple to apply and the analysis is readi ly implemented on a personal computer.