Origin and Development of Muscle Cramps
Seven pages on PainSci cite Minetto 2013: 1. Quite a Stretch 2. The Complete Guide to Muscle Strains 3. Water Fever and the Fear of Chronic Dehydration 4. Vitamins, Minerals & Supplements for Pain & Healing 5. Cramps, Spasms, Tremors & Twitches 6. Do spasms hurt? 7. Magnesium supplementation as a pain killer
PainSci notes on Minetto 2013:
This dense review of the physiology of muscle cramps asserts that the role of spinal mechanisms has been “proved unambiguously,” but mysteries remain, most notably why cramping is much more likely in some people and some muscles, and (fascinatingly) why they hurt.
original abstract †Abstracts here may not perfectly match originals, for a variety of technical and practical reasons. Some abstacts are truncated for my purposes here, if they are particularly long-winded and unhelpful. I occasionally add clarifying notes. And I make some minor corrections.
Cramps are sudden, involuntary, painful muscle contractions. Their pathophysiology remains poorly understood. One hypothesis is that cramps result from changes in motor neuron excitability (central origin). Another hypothesis is that they result from spontaneous discharges of the motor nerves (peripheral origin). The central origin hypothesis has been supported by recent experimental findings, whose implications for understanding cramp contractions are discussed.
This page is part of the PainScience BIBLIOGRAPHY, which contains plain language summaries of thousands of scientific papers & others sources. It’s like a highly specialized blog. A few highlights:
- Topical glyceryl trinitrate (GTN) and eccentric exercises in the treatment of mid-portion achilles tendinopathy (the NEAT trial): a randomised double-blind placebo-controlled trial. Kirwan 2024 Br J Sports Med.
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