Muscles Flashcards
Skeletal Muscle General Characteristics
Attached to bones and skin, covers the skeleton. Responsible for movement and maintenance of position. Is striated and is the most abundant. Voluntary, under conscious control. Very powerful cells, and longest cell type. Cells are multinucleated and have many mitochondria.
Smooth Muscle General Characteristics
Found in the walls of the visceral organs. Function is to control the movement of material. Nonstriated, smaller cells with pointed end and a belly. Under involuntary control. Innervation is rare unless it is to an entire mass.
Cardiac Muscle General Characteristics
Found in the heart. Striated, has intercalated discs. Involuntary and innervated as one mass.
Skeletal Muscle Cells
Called muscle fibers, and are long and stringy. Each one is served by one artery, one nerve, and one or more veins.
Endomysium
Fine areolar connective tissue surrounding each muscle fiber which insulates the cell.
Satellite cells
Scattered between the muscle cells and endomysium, they permit repair of damaged cells.
Fascicle
A bundle of muscle cells
Perimysium
A sheath of collagen that binds the fascicles
Epimysium
An overcoat of dense connective tissue that surrounds the whole muscle.
Indirect Attachment of Muscles
Tendons, cord-like structures, or aponeurosis, flat extensions, connect the muscles to bone. They are the most common, because they withstand friction better.
Fascicle Arrangement:
Parallel
The length of the fascicles runs parallel to the long axis of the muscle.
Fascicle Arrangement:
Convergent
The muscle has a broad origin where the fascicles lead to a single tendon called the insertion.
Fascicle Arrangement:
Pennate
The muscles look like a feather.
Fascicle Arrangement:
Unipennate
The muscles looks like half of a feather with a tendon as the shaft.
Fascicle Arrangement:
Bipennate
The muscle looks like a complete feather with a tendon as the shaft.
Fascicle Arrangement:
Multipennate
The muscle looks like 3 or more feathers attached at their bases.
Fascicle Arrangement:
Circular
Fascicles form a circle of muscle fibers, they form sphincter muscles.
Excitation (4 steps)
1) Vesicles in the nerve cells rupture and move to the terminal end of the nerve fiber releasing acetycholine.
2) The acetycholine diffuses across the cap and attaches to receptors on the scarcolemma.
3) There’s an influx of Na+ resulting in an inwards movement of Na+ and develops a local potential, an EPP.
4) Once the EPP reaches threshold, the Na+ channels open and Na+ flood in initiating the AP.
Excitation (4 steps)
1) Vesicles in the nerve cells rupture and move to the terminal end of the nerve fiber releasing acetycholine.
2) The acetycholine diffuses across the gap and attaches to receptors on the sarcolemma.
3) There’s an influx of Na+ resulting in an inwards movement of Na+ and develops a local potential, an EPP.
4) Once the EPP reaches threshold, the Na+ channels open and Na+ flood in initiating the AP.
Mechanism for Muscle Contraction
In order for the cell to contract, it must first be excited and an action potential must move across the membrane. For a skeletal muscle, the source is always the nervous system.
Calcium’s role in contraction
Calcium reacts with troponin and acts like a switch changing the shape of the troponin-tropomyosin complex. This uncovers the cross-bridge binding site on the thin filaments.
Mechanism of the Sliding of the Thin Filaments (4 Steps)
1) When the myosin of the cross-bridges attaches, it’s in the high energy configuration. As soon as it attaches to the binding site, it returns to the low energy configuration.
2) A new ATP attaches to the myosin head and causes it to detach from the binding site.
3) Now the ATP is hydrolyzed to ADP, releasing energy returning the myosin to the high energy configuration
4) The myosin head now binds to a new binding site and the process is now repeated.
Relaxation (3 steps)
1) Termination, the AP permits the sarcoplasmic reticulum to transport Ca2+ out of the myofibrils.
2) The loss of Ca2+ results in the reattachment of the troponin and tropomyosin complex to the binding sites and the breaking off of contact with the cross-bridges.
3) The end result is that the thin filaments are no longer attached to the thick filaments. They slide back to the resting, relaxed points because of the elastic elements.
Muscles in the absence of Calcium
No contraction will occur