Unit 2: Muscle Physiology Flashcards
What are the 3 types of muscle tissue?
1) Skeletal
2) Visceral/Smooth
3) Cardiac
The biggest quantity of muscle type (about 40% body mass) is:
skeletal muscle
Skeletal muscle is found:
Attached to skeleton
Skeletal muscle plays an important role in:
moving/positioning bones within the skeleton
Under the microscope, skeletal muscle is:
striated [striped pattern]
voluntary [has the potential to be controlled]
Which muscle type is voluntary?
Only skeletal
The 2nd most wide-spread muscle type is:
visceral muscle
Most of the _________ muscle type is associated with hollow internal structures/organs like intestines/airways
visceral
Under the microscope, visceral muscle:
NONstriated/ smooth muscle
involuntary
Cardiac muscle is only found-
within the structure of the heart
Under the microscope, cardiac muscle:
is striated [less so than skeletal muscle]
involuntary
What are the 3 basic muscle functions?
1) produce movement
2) maintaining posture [prevent movement]
3) heat generation
What are the 4 key characteristics of muscle?
1) Excitability
2) Contractibility
3) Extensibility
4) Elasticity
Muscle excitability is
the ability for the cells to change their electrical charge
_________ is responsible for electrical signaling within cells
Excitability
Contractility is the ability to
shorten the muscle
Extensibility is
After contraction, the muscle relaxes and lengthens again
Elasticity means
when a muscle is stretched, it will spring back to its original shape [force that opposes stretching]
the outer layer of the muscle cell is the
plasma membrane [sarcolemma]
The muscle’s plasma membrane is called
sarcolemma
The sarcolemma gets its unique name because
it forms invaginations [modifications of membrane called Transverse Tubules]
The Transverse Tubules pass right up against some key organelles:
smooth endoplasmic reticulum
AKA sarcoplasmic reticulum
&
Myofibril
The sarcoplasmic reticulum has been highly specialized for the purpose of
storing calcium
~internally holds large quantities of calcium
The 1-2-3 pattern associated with every T tubule is called
a triad
The Transverse tubule (really the whole triad) wraps around
a myofibril
The myofibril is made up of
Filament proteins [myofilaments]
~thick & thin overlapping filaments
The muscle cells are filled with ____________ that are responsible for production of ATP by way of aerobic mechanisms to fuel muscle contraction activity
mitochondria
The I band zone is ______ in color
Light
The A band zone is ______ in color
dark
The dark line in the center of the I band is the
Z line
The A band has a lighter center region called
H zone
The dark line in the center of the H zone is the
M line
The Z line represents the point where
All of the thin myofilaments are bound to each other
The M line represents the point where
all of the thick myofilaments are bound to each other
The repeating element from Z line to Z line is
Sarcomere
The segment where thin and thick myofilaments overlap is called
the zone of overlap
Contraction occurs in the
zone of overlap
The zone of overlap is responsible for
contraction
The area with just thin filaments is the
I band
The area with thick filaments is the
A band
There are 3 proteins making up the structure of a thin myofilament:
~Actin [looks like a string of pearls/little balls]
~Troponin [responsible for linking tropomyosin complex to actin proteins & can interact w/ calcium]
~Tropomyosin [fibrous; linked to troponin; lays on actin binding sites]; behaves like a competitive inhibitor.
Actin is shaped in a way so it can interact with :
myosin
When __________, the myosin heads latch on to actin and undergo power strokes that pull in the direction towards the middle of the sarcomere [left to right; right to left]
contracting
Cross-bridge formation occurs when myosin heads attach to binding sites on _______ which is part of the _______ filaments.
actin
thin
The T-tubule is a part of:
the cell membrane
identify B
I band
In a muscle cell at rest the sarcoplasmic reticulum contains an abundance of calcium, while the ________ does not contain any calcium.
sarcoplasm
Which of muscle types is described “involuntary”?
multiunit smooth muscle
single unit smooth muscle
cardiac muscle
The image above depicts a skeletal muscle cell. The structure labeled C (in yellow) is a tubular structure. What flows through that tube?
nothing “flows” through the tube, but it is filled with cytosol
Myosin molecules have binding sites for binding with:
ATP
Actin
the excitation event in the transverse tubule triggers the sarcoplasmic reticulum to
release its calcium and flood the sarcoplasm
[triggering ion channels in the SR to open]
The calcium attaches to binding sites on
the troponin component of the troponin-tropomyosin complex
When the ________ & _______bind to each other, this is the trigger releasing energy of the spring
myosin and actin
____ is necessary to get the muscle to relax
ATP
The next contraction occurs by adding:
calcium
[not ATP]
Excitation of a skeletal muscle cell depends on:
a triggering event coming from outside, specifically from a neuron
[Somatic Alpha motor neuron]- will connect to a muscle cell
what is a synapse composed of?
Axon
Axon terminal
Synaptic vesicles
Synaptic cleft
Motor end plate
Nerve impulses/action potentials travel down the axon towards the:
terminal
Inside the axon terminal, it is filled with membrane bubbles called
synaptic vesicles
Synaptic vesicles are filled with
neurotransmitters [chemical signals]
The extracellular gap between the axon terminal and another cell is called
synaptic cleft [aka synapse]
The entire synapse [of skeletal muscle] is also called
neuromuscular junction
___________ is a common neurotransmitter inside synaptic vesicles that determines whether a target cell becomes excited or not
Acetylcholine (ACH)
The membrane of the post-synaptic muscle cell is called
motor end plate
The _____ _______ _____ has receptors that can respond to neurotransmitter release by the neuron
motor end plate
The combination of one neuron and all of the muscle cells it is connected to, so has control over, is called
a motor unit
Motor units ______ overlap
do not
Each muscle cell is responding to one single __________, but each ________ can be controlling multiple muscle cells
- neuron
- neuron