Muscle Tissue Flashcards
Skeletal muscle tissue
•Description
•Function
•Location
Description:
•long cylindrical multinucleated cells; obvious striations
Function:
•voluntary movement, locomotion, manipulation, facial expression, voluntary control
Location:
•in skeletal muscles attached to bones or occasionally to skin
3 types of muscle tissue
- skeletal
- cardiac
- smooth
Cardiac muscle tissue
•description
•function
•location
Description:
•branching, striated, generally uninucleated cells that interdigitate at specialized junctions
Function:
•as it contracts it propels blood into the circulation; involuntary control
Location
•the walls of the heart
Cardiac muscle tissue
•description
•function
•location
Description:
•branching, striated, generally uninucleated cells that interdigitate at specialized junctions
Function:
•as it contracts it propels blood into the circulation; involuntary control
Location
•the walls of the heart
Smooth muscle
•Description
•Function
•Location
Description:
•spindle shaped cells with central nuclei; no striations; cells arranged closely to form sheets
Function:
•propels substances or objects along internal passageways; involuntary control
Location:
•mostly in the walls of hallow organs
Special physical characteristics of muscle
Excitability
Contractility
Extensibility
Elasticity
Excitability
The ability to respond to certain stimuli by producing electrical signals (action potentials)
Contractility
The ability to shorten forcefully when adequately stimulated
Extensibility
The ability to be stretched or extended
Elasticity
The ability to recoil after being stretched
Muscle functions
- producing movement
- maintaining posture and body position
- stabilizing joints
- generating heat
Nerve supply
- Has a rich nerve supply
- Each muscle fibre is innervated by its own nerve ending
- allows precise neural control of the entire muscle during contraction
Blood supply
- has a rich blood supply because contracting muscle fibres uses a huge amount of energy and a more or less continuous delivery of oxygen and nutrients
- muscle capillaries are long and winding
Connective tissue sheaths
Support and reinforce the muscle as a whole
•epimysium
•perimysium
•endomysium
Epimysium
Surrounds the whole muscle
Perimysium
Surrounds the fascicles
Endomysium
Surrounds each fiber
Attachments of muscle
Skeletal muscles span joints and are attached to bones in at least two places
•during contraction the insertion (moveable bone) moves towards the origin (less/immovable bone)
Direct attachments
The muscles epimysium is fused to the bones periosteum
Indirect attachments
The muscles connective tissue sheaths are attached to the bone either as a rope like tendon or as a sheet like aponeurosis
What is the sarcolemma
What does it have
- Plasma membrane
* T tubules that help an electrical impulse to get to the cell
What is the sarcoplasm
The cytoplasm
What is different about the sarcoplasm in a skeletal muscle fiber
Contains large amounts of
•glycosomes: bags of glycogen
•myoglobin: red coloured protein stores oxygen
Specialized organelles
- myofibrils
- sarcoplasmic reticulum
- T tubules
Myofibrils
- rodlike, run the length of the cell
- myofibrils are composed of myofilaments that are organized into sarcomeres
- has repeating light and dark bands