Simons G D, Mense S
3176 Monticello St., Covington, GA 30209-4210, USA Institut für Anatomie und Zellbiologie, Im Neuenheimer Feld 307, 69120 Heidelberg, Germany.
Pain. 1998 Mar;75(1):1-17. doi: 10.1016/S0304-3959(97)00102-4.
Measurable sources of muscle tension include viscoelastic tone, physiological contracture (neither of which involve motor unit action potentials), voluntary contraction, and muscle spasm (which we define as involuntary muscle contraction). The latter two depend on motor unit action potentials to generate the tension. Total muscle tension is most accurately measured as stiffness. Thixotropy of muscle is an ubiquitous and functionally important phenomenon that is not commonly recognized. A clinical pain condition associated with increased muscle tension is tension-type headache, which is largely muscular in origin; it is often caused by myofascial trigger points, but not by a pain-spasm-pain cycle, which is a physiologically and clinically untenable concept. Clinical conditions associated with painful muscle spasm include spasmodic torticollis, trismus, unnecessary muscle tension, nocturnal leg cramps, and stiff-man syndrome.
可测量的肌肉张力来源包括粘弹性张力、生理性挛缩（两者均不涉及运动单位动作电位）、随意收缩和肌肉痉挛（我们将其定义为非自愿性肌肉收缩）。后两者依赖运动单位动作电位来产生张力。总肌肉张力最准确的测量方式是硬度。肌肉的触变性是一种普遍存在且功能上很重要的现象，但通常未被认识到。与肌肉张力增加相关的临床疼痛状况是紧张型头痛，其主要起源于肌肉；它通常由肌筋膜触发点引起，而非由疼痛 - 痉挛 - 疼痛循环引起，后者是一个在生理和临床上都站不住脚的概念。与疼痛性肌肉痉挛相关的临床病症包括痉挛性斜颈、牙关紧闭、不必要的肌肉张力、夜间腿部抽筋和僵人综合征。
