Andrew Huberman· PhD
Those lower motor neurons send little wires that we call axons out to our muscles and cause those muscles to contract. They do that by dumping chemicals onto the muscle. In fact, the chemical is acetylcholine.
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The evidence is convergent. Multiple independent sources reach the same conclusion, the underlying mechanism is well-characterized, and even the field's most cautious voices treat it as worth doing.
Those lower motor neurons send little wires that we call axons out to our muscles and cause those muscles to contract. They do that by dumping chemicals onto the muscle. In fact, the chemical is acetylcholine.
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But in the neuromuscular system, acetylcholine released from motor neurons is the way the only way that muscles can contract.
So, within your spinal cord, you have a category of neurons, nerve cells, that are called motor neurons. ... Those motor neurons send a little wire or set of wires out to your muscles, and that creates what's called a neuromuscular junction, which just means that the neurons meet the muscles at a particular place. Those neurons release a chemical, that chemical is called acetylcholine. ... the release of acetylcholine from these nerve cells, these neurons, onto the muscles causes the muscles to contract.
And it's those motor neurons from the spinal cord that are really responsible for the major movement of your limbs by way of causing contraction of specific muscles at specific times.