, and anatomy
, muscle tone
(aka residual muscle tension
) is the continuous and passive partial contraction of the muscles
. It helps maintain posture
, and it declines during REM sleep
. It is not to be confused with the concept of toning
in physical exercise
Unconscious nerve impulses
maintain the muscles in a partially contracted state. If a sudden pull
or stretch occurs, the body responds by automatically increasing the muscle's tension
, a reflex which helps guard against danger as well as helping to maintain balance
The presence of near-continuous innervation makes it clear that tonus describes a "default" or "steady state" condition. There is, for the most part, no actual "rest state" insofar as activation is concerned.
In terms of skeletal muscle, both the extensor and flexor muscles, under normal enervation maintain a constant tone while "at rest" that maintains a normal posture.
Cardiac muscle and smooth muscle, although not directly connected to the skeleton, also have tonus in the sense that although their contractions are not matched with those of antagonist muscles; their non-contractive state is characterized by (sometimes random) enervation.
Physical disorders can result in abnormally low (hypotonia
) or high (hypertonia
) muscle tone. Another form of hypertonia is Paratonia
, which is associated with dementia
Tonus in surgery
, tonus may be a central consideration in eye surgery
, as in the manipulation of extraocular muscles
to repair strabismus
. Tonicity aberrations are associated with many diseases of the eye (e.g. Adie syndrome