In the spinal cord, MNs are organized into columns (Table 1) based on the location of their target muscle [reviewed in Matise and Sharma (2013) and Stifani (2014)]. Within each column, the MNs innervating each muscle are clustered into motor pools, each containing of 20–300 cells depending on the muscle (Bryan et al., 1972; McHanwell and Biscoe, 1981). α-MNs located in the spinal cord are archetypal MNs that innervate extrafusal muscle fibers, thus creating force to move the skeleton (Table 2). In contrast, γ-MNs innervate intrafusal fibers, which modulate the sensitivity of muscle spindles to stretch (Table 2) (Hunt and Kuffler, 1951; Kuffler et al., 1951; Kanning et al., 2010). β-MNs are not as well characterized as α-MNs but they innervate both intrafusal and extrafusal muscle fibers (Bessou et al., 1965). Both α and γ-MNs have large dendritic trees but γ-MNs have fewer large dendrites than α-MNs (7–11) and they also branch less (Westbury, 1982). The somas of γ-MNs are smaller than those of α-MNs and they also possess thinner axons, which reflects their slower conduction velocity (<55 m/s in γ-MN vs. ∼70–90 m/s in α-MNs in cats) (Table 2) (Westbury, 1982). γ-MNs receive only indirect sensory inputs. Therefore, γ-MNs do not directly participate in spinal reflexes (Eccles et al., 1960; Stifani, 2014), but they contribute to the modulation of muscle contraction instead.