L4 Muscle Physiology
Tuesday, September 19, 2023 9:21 AM
Muscle Tissue Types
• Skeletal
○ Attached to bones
○ Nuclei multiple and peripherally located
○ During development, 100 or more myoblasts, a type of mesodermal cell, fuse to form a skeletal muscle
fiber.
○ Striated, Voluntary and involuntary (reflexes)
▪ Skeletal Muscles
□ Long cylindrical cells
□ Many nuclei per cell
□ Striated
□ Voluntary
□ Rapid contractions
• Cardiac
○ Heart only
○ Single Nucleus Centrally located
○ Striations, involuntary, intercalated
▪ Cardiac Muscle
□ Branching Cells
□ One/Two nuclei per cell
□ Striated
□ Involuntary
□ Medium Speed Contractions
• Smooth
○ Walls of hollow organs, blood vessels, eyes, glands, skin (Arrector/Erector Pili)
○ Single Nucleus centrally located
○ Not striated, involuntary, gap junctions in visceral smooth
▪ Smooth Muscle
□ Fusiform
□ One nucleus per cell
□ Nonstriated
□ Involuntary
□ Slow, wave-like contractions
Peristalsis
◊ Wave like motion
Muscle System Functions
• Body Movement
• Maintenance of posture
• Respiration
• Production of body heat
• Communication
• Constriction of organs and vessels
• Heartbeat
Properties of Muscles
• Contractility
○ Ability to shorten with force
○ It DOES NOT produce force by lengthening/pushing!
• Excitability
○ Capacity of muscle to respond to a stimulus
• Extensibility
○ Muscle can be stretched to its normal resting length and beyond to a limited degree
• Elasticity
○ Ability of muscle to recoil to original resting length after stretched
Functional Excursion
• Ability of mm to shorten/contract/lengthen maximally
Physiology Page 1
• Ability of mm to shorten/contract/lengthen maximally
• 2 jointed mm only
○ e.g., biceps
• 2 types of Excursion
○ Active insufficiency
▪ Mm can no longer be shortened due to it being shortened maximally
○ Passive insufficiency
▪ Mm can no longer be lengthened
Muscle Proteins
• Contractile Proteins
○ Action and myosin
• Regulatory
Myosin Heavy Chain Light Chain
• A molecular motor
• Myosin Head
○ Retains all the motor functions of myosin
▪ i.e., ability to produce movement and force
• Crossbridge
○ Myosin sticks to exposed Actin head
• Power Stroke
○ Myosin head slides across actin
• Relax
Troponin-Tropomyosin complex
• G - Actin
○ 1 Strand
• F Actin
○ Two Strands
• Tropomyosin bound by
• Troponin
○ T-affinity to tropomyosin
○ I-affinity - inhibitory
○ C-affinity to Ca+
• When muscles are contracted holes in actin chains are closed
Sarcoplasmic Reticulum (SR):
• Stores and releases calcium Ca + ions
• Triad
○ Two terminal cisternae and a T-Tubule
• T-Triad
○ Sarcoplasmic Reticulum
○ Between 2 T-Tubules
Sarcolemma
• Plasma membrane
Glycogen is abundant in Sarcoplasm, split via hydrolysis into glucose and ATP
Myoglobin
• Red in color
• Stored in muscle fiber
• Binds oxygen
Mitochondira
I-Band thins (shortens)
A-Band no Change
H-zone disappears
Sliding Filament Model
AKA: Excitation Contraction Coupling
• Actin slides towards the midline
Physiology Page 2
• Actin slides towards the midline
• Actin myofilaments sliding over myosin to shorten sarcomeres
○ Action and Myosin DO NOT change length
○ Shortening sarcomeres responsible for skeletal muscle contraction
• During relaxation go back to original position
• Titin
○ Gives elastic components to muscles
• As skeletal muscles shorten, the elastic components are stretched and become taut. The tension then pulls the
body part that it is attached to, resulting in movement
Mechanism of Muscle Contraction
Neuromuscular Junction
• Situated at every end plate of Neuron
Myasthenic Conditions
• Myasthenic Gravis
○ Post
• Lambert q
• Botulinum Toxicity
○ Synaptic Cleft
○ Botox
Single Fiber Tension
The all-or-none principle
• A muscle fiber is either contracted or relaxed
Tension of a Single Muscle Fiber
Depends on
• The number of pivoting cross-bridges
• The fiber's resting length at the time of stimulation
• The Frequency of stimulation
Length-tension relationship
Motor Units
• One nerve supplies many/all muscle fibers
• There are many motor units in a muscle
• The number of fibers innervated by a single motor neuron varies (from a few to thousand)
Muscle is Plastic
• Muscle adapts to meet the habitual level of demand placed on it.
• Level of physical activity determined by the frequency of recruitment and the load
Muscle Contraction Types
Isotonic Contraction
• Changes length, same tone
• Shortening or lengthening contraction
○ Concentric Contraction
▪ AKA shortening muscle contraction
○ Eccentric Contraction
▪ AKA Lengthening muscle contraction
Isometric Contraction
• Changes tone, same length
• e.g., Muscle setting
• 1st treatment for patient
Multiple Motor Unit Summation
Summation
• Recruitment of muscle fibers
• Generates stronger/longer Contraction
○ Temporal Summation
▪ Sends AP multiple times
Physiology Page 3
▪ Sends AP multiple times
○ Spatial Summation
▪ Surrounding nerve fibers release AP at the same time
• Tetanic
○ Continuous contraction
• Incomplete Tetanic
○ Incomplete contraction
• Treppe'
○ Gets stronger over time
○ Graded response
○ Occurs in muscle rested for prolonged period
○ Each subsequent contraction is stronger than the previous
ATP as Energy Source
Muscles obtain this via Cellular Respiration
• Through Sarcolemma
• Present Glycogen
○ Aerobic Metabolism
▪ 95% of cell demand
▪ Kreb's cycle
▪ 1 pyruvic acid molecule = 17 ATP
○ Anaerobic Metabolism
▪ From blood converted into Glucose by Insulin then back to Glycogen (2 ATP)
▪ Glycolysis = 2 Pyruvic acids + 2 ATP
▪ Provides substrates for aerobic metabolism
▪ As pyruvic acid builds converted to lactic acids
□ Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness (DOMS)
• Presence of Myoglobin
Creatine
• Molecule capable of storing ATP energy
• Creatine + ATP = Creatine Phosphate + ADP
• ADP + Creatine Phosphate = ATP + Creatine
Muscle Fatigue
• Muscle Fatigue
○ When muscles can no longer perform a required activity, they are fatigued
• Results of Muscle Fatigue
○ Depletion of metabolic reserves
○ Damage to sarcolemma and sarcoplasmic reticulum
○ Low pH (lactic Acid)
○ Muscle exhaustion and pain
Fatigue
• Decreased capacity to work and reduced efficiency of performance
• Types
○ Psychological
○ Muscular
○ Synaptic
Slow and Fast Twitch Fibers
• Slow-twitch or high-oxidative
○ Contract more slowly, smaller in diameter, better blood supply, more mitochondria, more fatigue -resistant
than fast-twitch
• Fast-twitch or low oxidative
○ Respond rapidly to nervous stimulation, contain myosin to break down ATP more rapidly, less blood supply,
fewer and small mitochondria than slow-twitch
• Distribution of fast and slow twitch
○ Most mm have
Muscle Hypertrophy
6 - 8 weeks
Bigger muscles
Physiology Page 4
Bigger muscles
Muscle Atrophy
• Lack of muscle activity
• Reduce muscle size, tone, and power
Steroid Hormones
• Stimulates muscle growth and hypertrophy
• Growth hormone testosterone
• Thyroid hormones
• Epinephrine
Refractory Period
• Brief period of time in which muscle cells will not respond to a stimulus
• 2 types
○ Relative
▪ Mm can be stimulated again as long as SUPRAMAXIMAL stimulus
▪ -2/3 of Repolarization
□ Must be Treppe
○ Absolute
▪ Cannot contract mm regardless of strength of stimulus
▪ -1/3 of Repolarization
Physiology Page 5
