Muscle Physiology Flashcards
What is the primary muscle of the body?
Skeletal muscle makes up 40% of muscle in the body. It is innervated by somatic motor neurones only and generates movement and heat through its contraction.
What is the structure of skeletal muscle?
Single unit of muscle fibre is the fasiculus arranged in a sarcomere unit. Between the fasiculus is the connective tissue called endomysium. There are capillaries which vascularise the muscle. Enclosing the muscle is a deep fascia called the epimysium.
What is the epimysium?
Thick connective tissue which surrounds the entire muscle tissue
What is the perimysium?
Connective tissue surrounding muscle bundles
What is the endomysium?
Connective tissue between individual muscle fibres in the fasiculus
What is the fasiculus?
A bundle of muscle fibres
What are satellite cells?
Multipotent progenitor cells in the muscle fibre which lie between the sarcolemma and the basement membrane with cell-matrix interactions and cell -cell interactions. They give rise to new muscle, immune cells and fibroblasts in the muscle.
How does new muscle form?
Satellite cells remain in a quiescent state until other satellite cells release growth factors to stimulate differentiation. It forms a multinucleate myocyte which undergoes fission to form a myotube that matures into a muscle fibre.
What are myocytes?
Single cell unit of the muscles which is multinucleate.
What are myotubes?
Intermediate in the formation of muscle fibres from the fission of myocytes to form a synctium.
What is the structure of the sarcomere?
M band is the centre of the sarcomere containing myomesin protein. This is in the H band region containing myosin only. A band contains actin and myosin. I band contains actin only. Actin is attached to the a-actinin protein which makes up the Z line. Myosin attaches to the Z line via the titin protein which stabilises it.
What is the composition of the Z line?
A-actinin protein which allows direct attachment to actin and indirect attachment to myosin via titin protein.
What is titin?
Protein which allows myosin to attach to the Z line and stabilises it.
What is a sliding filament theory?
Change in sarcomere zones during muscle contraction. I band and H band decrease; A band stays the same
What is the thick filament?
Myosin which consists of 6 subunits; 4 light polypeptide chains which regulate the myosin head and 2 heavy polypeptide chains. Myosin heads contain ATPase and binds to actin.
What is the thin filament?
Actin which consists of 2 polypeptide chains composed of a-globular protein. It has a tropomyosin regulatory complex which blocks the active site and a troponin complex that regulates tropomyosin.
What happens if ATP levels in the muscle is low?
Actin-myosin cross bridge does not break and muscle remains in a relaxed state and muscle contraction does not occur again.
What is lusitropy?
Rate of muscle relaxation.
What determines tension of a muscle fibre?
Initial length of the muscle at rest
What is the length-tension curve?
Describes the non-linear relationship between muscle length at rest and muscle tension achieved during contraction.
How does increased length affect tension?
Reduced tension beyond optimal length; Less cross bridges form because of the distance between myosin and actin.
How does decreased length affect tension?
Reduced tension below optimal length; Not enough space for filaments to slide over each other for contraction.
What is the neuromuscular junction?
Motor end plate; synapse between the somatic motor neuron in contact with the terminal cisternae of the sarcoplasmic reticulum
How does neuromuscular transmission occur in the neuron?
Pre-synaptic neuron receives action potential via its dendrites which causes voltage gated Ca2+ channels to open and Ca2 to leave and induce exocytosis of acetlycholine vesicles to bind to nicotinic receptors on the sarcoplasmic reticulum
How does neuromuscular transmission occur in the muscle?
Action potential reaches the t-tubules and causes opening of DHPR L-type calcium channels which open and release Ca2+. It is mechanically coupled to ryanodine receptor Ca2+ release channels that are triggered to open.