THB MAIN FUNCTION of the muscle spindle is to provide the nervous system with information about the state of the muscles, both during movement and during steady state contrac tion. However, the precise nature of this infor mation and the various ways in which it is used by the nervous system in regulating muscle contrac tion is not yet fully understood. It is known that impulses from stretch receptors in the muscle spin dles generally excite monosynaptically the large motoneurons supplying their own and synergistic muscles, and inhibit those of antagonistic muscles. This monosynaptic reflex is the basis of the stretch reflex.
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Newton et al. (1965) studied this question.