Lecture 15: Muscle Physiology L3 Flashcards
Explain Cardiac Muscle Structure vs skeletal muscle?
- both are striated,
arrangement of the CONTRACTILE APPARATUS is fundamentally similar to that of skeletal muscle.
Cardiac muscle:
* Structure = 8
1 * Are considerably shorter.
2 * Have branched processes
3 * Have gap junctions, allowing electrical communication between cells
4 * Have a different mechanism of excitation-contraction coupling*
5 * Have a less developed SR
- INTERCALATED DISCS = Cardiac muscle fibers branch and are interconnected by intercalated discs
- plasma membranes of adjacent cardiac muscle fibers.
8.Desmosome
Cardiac Muscle Struture: DESMOSOME
Desmosomes mechanically connect the sarcomeres in adjacent cells.
Cardiac Muscle Structure: GAP JUNCTIONS function?
allow the action potential to travel from cell to cell without the requirement for a motor nerve
CARDIAC MUSCLE STRUCTURE:
Intercalated discs contain 2 types of membrane junctions:
- Mechanically important desmosomes
- Electrically important Gap junctions
Excitation-contraction coupling: Cardiac vs skeletal muscle
Effect of removing external (extracellular) Ca2+ from the bathing
medium in isolated cardiac and skeletal muscle preparations
SLIDE 7
Excitation-contraction coupling in skeletal muscle
- Action potential in Muscle Membrane
- Release Channelss (RC)
AND Voltage sensors (VS)
to SR - SR Ca+2 pump
- Ca2+ into SR
- Ca+2 RELAXATION (Contractile apparatus)
- T-tubule
Excitation-contraction coupling: Cardiac vs skeletal muscle
Effect of removing external (extracellular) Ca2+ from the bathing
medium in isolated cardiac and skeletal muscle preparations SLIDE 9
Excitation-contraction coupling in Cardiac muscle…
- Action potential
- muscle membrane
- T-tubule Ca+2 channel
- SR Ca+2 pump in SR, CA+2
- Ca+2 out through SR CA+2 release channels.
- Na+ in, Ca+2 out
- Ca+2 in contractile apparatus
- Cardiac ECC: Primarily Ca2+-induced Ca2+ release from the SR
Excitation-contraction coupling in cardiac muscle. = 3
- Ca2+ INFLUX through the SARCOLEMMAL Ca2+ CHANNELS INDS TO AND ACTIVATES SR Ca+2 RELEASE CHANNELS.
- Stored SR Ca2+ is RELEASED INTO THE CYTOPLASM AND ACTIVATES CONTRACTION.
3.* This system of ECC is known as CALCIUM-INDUCED CALCIUM RELEASE (CICR).
Ionic basis of the cardiac action potential = 2
1 * The LONG REFRACTORY PEROID PREVENTS another AP FIRING DURING TENSION DEVELOPMENT.
2 * The Ca2+ INFLUX PRODUCING THE PLATEAU IS THE SAME
Ca2+ that is ACTIVATING Ca2+ RELEASE BY THE SR via CICR
SLIDE 12
Electrical conduction in the heart = 4
- AUTONOMIC N.S. MODULATES —>
- PACEMAKER =
- Sinoatrial (SA) Node3. - ‘SMALL FIBRES’ Delay APs
- Atrioventricular (AV) Node - BUNDLE OF His = TRANSMITS APs to VENTRICLE
Cardiac length-tension relationship compared to skeletal muscle
- The length tension curve increases the heart’s ability to contract at higher levels of stretch (ventricular filling).
- This is a fundamental mechanism responsible for the Frank Starling law of the heart, where increased diastolic volume leads to increased systolic contraction.
SLIDE 14
Motor Units and Fibre Types…
WHAT IS MOTOR UNITS?
Motor unit – Single motor neuron and the multiple muscle fibres that it INNERVATES
Motor units in various human muscles…
No of Motor Units?, Muscle fibres/unit?
- GASTROCNEMIUS
- TIBIALIS ANTERIOR
- RECTUS LATERALIS (extraocular muscle)
- GASTROCNEMIUS = ‘579 motor units, 1,934 muscle fibres/units.’
- TIBIALIS ANTERIOR = ‘445 motor units, 562 muscle fibres/units.’
- RECTUS LATERALIS (extraocular muscle) = ‘4,150 motor units, 5 muscle fibres/units.’