= M. C. Brown
{c}
<M. C. Brown> coauthored experiments showing that a <muscle spindle>'s sensory response depends on its recent motor input. In 1969, recordings from the soleus <muscle> of anaesthetized cats with cut <ventral roots> paired stimulation of a single motor fibre supplying a <muscle spindle> with a later stretch. A burst of <action potentials> that had been absent before stimulation appeared during the testing stretch. The effect could persist for more than a minute, but another stretch abolished it.<After-effects of fusimotor stimulation on the response of muscle spindle primary afferent endings by M. C. Brown and others>[abstract, points 1–3]{ref}
An illuminating feature was the dependence on conditioning length: starting the test from a shorter <muscle> length delayed the burst until the stretch passed the length used during stimulation. Thus, identical current lengths need not imply identical sensory output when the mechanical histories differ. The authors proposed persistent bonds between <actin> and <myosin> inside the <muscle spindle>; this was an interpretation of the observations, rather than a direct measurement of those bonds.<After-effects of fusimotor stimulation on the response of muscle spindle primary afferent endings by M. C. Brown and others>[abstract, points 4–6]{ref}
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