Skeletal Muscle Physiology Flashcards
Isotonic contraction
Isotonic: Once the muscle has developed enough tension to move the load, the tension remains constant and muscle shortens.
- Shortening of muscle
- Movement of load
- Tension > load
List skeletal muscle types by increasing fiber diameter
Slow oxidative (small)
Fast oxidative (Intermediate)
Fast glycolytic (large)
What are the components of a triad?
1 T-tubule + 2 terminal cisterns of the sarcoplasmic reticulum
*The triad association is important for the contraction of the skeletal muscle because it is couple to the release of calcium.
What activities are each skeletal muscle type most suited for?
Slow oxidative
- Endurance type activities
Fast oxidative
- Sprinting, walking
Fast glycolytic
- Short term interse or powerful movements
What does a motor unit consist of?
A somatic motor neuron plus all the skeletal muscle fibers it stimulates.
What are the two methods of generating graded responses?
Temporal summation: An increase in the tension developed in a skeletal muscle fiber caused by an increase in the frequency of action potentials.
Motor unit recruitment
Molecules found in skeletal muscles that contain enzymatic material for glycolysis
Glycosome
What is troponin?
A complex of 3 proteins that bind to actin, tropomyosin, and calcium
What are the stabilizing filaments of muscle?
Titin
Nebulin
Myomesin
Dystrophin
Each axon terminal innervates _______ muscle fiber.
One
Bulbous end regions of the sarcoplasmic reticulum are called_____________
Terminal cisterna
Myasthenia gravis
- Autoimmune disease: antibodies to nicotinic acetylcholine receptors inhibit contraction.
- Chronic inflammation of MG causes structural changes of the neuromuscular junction.
- flattening out of the junctional folds
- Don’t function well
- spreading out of AChR and Acetylcholinesterase
- 66% decrease in number of AChR
- an increased junctional gap.
- flattening out of the junctional folds
Once the acetycholine is released, and it binds to its receptors, ion channels are opened. Are these ion channels specific? What do they allow for?
Ion channels are not specific. It allows sodium and potassium ions to flow through and down their gradients. Sodium flows into the cell and potassium flows out.
NOTE: Sodium flows much faster than potassium, so this will lead to depolization at the motor end plate.
Why is it that another AP can be generated shortly after the muscle has started to contract?
Muscles AP lasts for a short time and it’s almost finished before the muscle even begins to twitch, meaning that another AP can be generated shortly after the muscle has started to contract.
* These conractions can therefore be summated in skeletal muscles.
When you contract the sarcomere the ___________ disappears.
H-zone
End plate potential .vs. action potential
EPP (generator potential)
- Ligand gated channels
- Charge carriers are Na+, K+
- Passive repolarization
AP
- Voltage gated channel
- Charge carrier for depolarization is Na+
- Repolarization due to increased K+ conductance
How do you generate a stronger force using motor unit recruitment?
- Each motor unit requires a different stimulus. If you have a stimulus that stimulates all at once, you have a stronger force opposed to a stimulus that only stimulates one motor unit.
- Increasing the amount of stimulus coming from upper motor neurons increases the amount of lower motor neurons that are activated.
- This increases the amount of cells that contract and increase the overall contraction of the muscle.
How is ATP regenerated?
Phosphorylation of ADP by creatine phosphate (CP)
Generates 1 ATP per CP
Does not require oxygen
Provides 15 sec. of energy
Glycolysis
Generates 2ATPs per glucose
Does not require oxygen
Fast process
*Fast twitch fibers tend to use these two methods
Aerobic respiration in mitochondria (citric acid cycle)
- Generates 30-32 ATPs per glucose or FA
- Slow process
•Dependent on oxygen
*Slow twitch fibers use this method
Basic contractile unit of skeletal muscle
Sarcomere
What properties of muscle fibers determine twitch activity?
- Muscle properties such as:
- # of blood vessels
- Whether or not they have mitochondria
- Whether or not they use aerobic respiration
*There are different variants of myosin in our bodies that are genetically determined
What is the function of tropomyosin?
Blocks the myosin-binding site, when the muscle is at rest
What are three factors which affect the development of muscle tension?
1. Frequency of stimulation
2. Number of motor units recruited
3. Degree of muscle stretch
NOTE: We don’t need to generate maximum force in our muscles at all times. Less force for lighter things. More force for heavier things.
Strings of G- actin produce _____________
F- actin
The synaptic cleft of the neuromuscular junction is rich in __________ and ____________.
Glycoproteins and collagen fibers.
*The glycoproteins help keep neurotransmitters in the cleft just a little bit longer before being degraded by acethylcholinesterase.
What is treppe?
A gradual increase in tension due to a certain stimulus frequency
Adaptations to aerobic exercise leads to…
- Leads to increase in muscle capillaries, number of mitochondria and myoglobin synthesis.
- Results in greater endurance, strength, and resistance to fatigue
- May convert fast glycolytic fibers into fast oxidative fibers
* You can’t change slow to fast twitch becuase you can’t change the myosin activity
Is their an axon hillock in muscle cells?
No
*Outside of the motor end plate is where you’ll find the sodium and potassium voltage-gated channels
Active tension is due to binding between _____ and ________. Force generated can be limited by the __________.
Actin
Myosin
starting point
Explain steps to propagation of action potential
- An end plate potential is generated at the neuromuscular junction
- Depolarization: Generating and propagating an action potential (AP). The depolarization current spreads to adjacent areas of the sarcolemma. Voltage-gated Na+ channels open. Na+ enters cell and initiates the AP.
- Repolarization occurs as Na+ channels close (inactivate) and voltage-gated K+ channels open. K+ diffuses rapidly out of the muscle fiber.
What is the function of synaptotagmin?
- Binds Ca2+
- Initiates fusion of vesicles with the docking areas/ SNARES, allowing for release of acetylcholin
At what point does the force generation reach its peak?
When all of the troponin C molecules are bound to calcium.
Each muscle fiber has specialized region of sarcolemma with junctional fold containing ____________.
Ach receptors
What is the relationship between length and tension, in active tension?
- If you overcontract the muscles, the actin in the middle begins to overlap. When they overlap they begin to cover up myosin-binding sites.
- If you stretch the muscle, we get an “overlap” between myosin and actin that is no longer ideal becuase you have myosin heads that no longer have actin to bind to.
Why can each muscle cell only be innervated by one motor neuron?
In skeletal muscle each muscle cell is innervated by one neuron because it only has one motor end plate, so there’s only ONE region on the skeletal muscle cell that is innervated.
*That one end plate has to be enough to activate that cell at that one muscular junction
NOTE: This is very different from neurons that can have inhibitory post synaptic junctions and excitatory post synaptic junctions.
How is a skeletal muscle fiber stimulated to contract?
Glutamate is released from upper motor neurons to stimulate lower motor neurons. Once stimulated lower motor neurons secrete acetylcholine.
At shortened lengths, what contributed completely to total tension?
Active tension
*All force is generated actively
The ___________ receptor is found on the T-tubule and the ____________ is found on the SR.
Dihydropyridine; ryanodine
*The dihydropyridine and ryanodine receptors interact when an AP is proprogated. A conformational change happens with DP receptors that causes RD receptors to open. This allows for the release of Ca2+ into the cytosol.
Total tension=__________
Active tension + Passive tension
(a)At shortened lengths all force is generated actively.
Total tension = active tension
(b) As the muscle fiber is stretched beyond its resting length, passive tension begins to contribute to the total force.
Total tension = Active + passive
(c)If the muscle is further stretched, passive tension accounts for most of the total force.
Total tension = passive tension (almost)
What steps follow the formation of actin-myosin cross bridge?
- Cross bridge formation. Energized myosin head attaches to an actin myofilament, forming a cross bridge.
-
The power (working) stroke. ADP and Pi are released and the myosin head pivots and bends, changing to its bent low-energy state.
* As a result it pulls the actin filament toward the M line. - Cross bridge detachment. After ATP attaches to myosin, the link between myosin and actin weakens, and the myosin head detaches (the cross bridge “breaks”).
- Cocking of the myosin head. As ATP is hydrolyzed to ADP and Pi, the myosin head returns to its prestroke high-energy, or “cocked,” position. *
The voltage stimulus that produces the initial contraction is called the ______________
threshold stimulus.
____________ is a low-affinity, high capacity Ca2+ binding protein, within the terminal cisternae, keeps [Ca2+] in the SR.
Calsequestin
*Most of Ca2+ is stored throughout the entire SR but there is a higher concentration in the terminal cisterna becuase of the presence of calsequestrin, which binds to Ca2+
What happens once Ca2+ is released into the myoplasm?
Calcium binds to troponin- C in the skeletal muscle cell. Once Ca2+ binds it causes a conformational change in troponin C that causes tropomysosin to move from the binding site (it was covering up actin). Now myosin can bind.
What is muscle fatigue? How and why does it occur?
Muscle fatigue is the physiological inability to contract despite continued stimulation.
- Occurs when
- Ionic imbalances (K+, Ca2+, Pi) interfere with E‑C coupling
- Decreased release of calcium from SR
- ATP generation via glycolysis produces increases in [H+]. Decrease pH has been demonstated to:
- reduce the affinity of troponin for calcium.
- Reduce myosin ATPase activity
- Ionic imbalances (K+, Ca2+, Pi) interfere with E‑C coupling
NOTE: Muscle fatigue is NOT about using up ATP
Are smaller or larger motor units more excitable?
Small motor units (small fibers) are more excitable (lower threshold stimulus) than large motor units.
Smallest motor units have slow oxidative fibers (slow twitch)
Larger motor units have fast glycolytic fibers (fast twitch)