Effect of Task Failure on Intermuscular Coherence Measures in Synergistic Muscles

Figure 7

Conceptual model of the possible hypothesis suggested for the CNS to regulate the activity of synergistic muscles at task failure. At baseline, the three muscles receive a direct independent cortical command to each muscle (represented as the black pointed arrow) and a synergistic one of both cortical and spinal origin (represented as the common arrow that shades from dark grey, cortical component, to light grey, spinal component). When task failure occurs, the CNS suppresses the synergistic activation (represented as the common solid arrow becoming thinner) in favour of an increased cortical drive to the single muscle (represented as the individual pointed arrows becoming thicker) to keep the level of performance.