PREDICTING FORCE GENERATION BY LAMPREY MUSCLE DURING APPLIED SINUSOIDAL MOVEMENT USING A SIMPLE DYNAMIC-MODEL

Experiments were performed on single-myotome preparations of lamprey m uscle, to discover whether force developed by intermittent tetanic sti mulation during imposed sinusoidal movement could be predicted by data collected from isometric and constant-velocity experiments. We develo ped a simple dynamic model consisting of a set of simultaneous ordinar y differential equations with unknown parameters. Appropriate values o f the parameters were found by fitting numerical solutions of the diff erential equations to data from the isometric and constant-velocity ex periments. Predictions were made of the time course of force developed during imposed sinusoidal movement in which the phase between muscle shortening and tetanic stimulation was varied to cover the whole phase spectrum. The match between the predicted and recorded time courses w as very good for all phases, and particularly for those phases that ar e seen during swimming in the intact animal.