Muscle study notes

Muscles - Responsible for all types of body movement “machines”

- Dominant tissue in the heart and in the walls of other hollow organs of the
body.
- Half body’s mass
- Essential function of muscle is contraction.

Three basic types of muscles: Skeletal, cardiac and smooth.

- Muscle cell = Muscle fiber
- Contraction of muscles is due to microfilament
- Myo and mys refer to “muscle”
- Sarco refers to “flesh”

Skeletal: - Elongated
- Attached to the body’s skeleton
- Fibers huge
- Multi nucleate cell
- Largest of muscle fiber types (30 cm)
- Striated, Voluntary
- Can contract rapidly and with great force, but it tires easily
- Soft, Fragile
- Connective tissue involved: Epimysium, perimysium, and endomysium.

Connective tissue:
- Cells are surrounded and bundled by connective
tissue which provides strength and support.
- Endomysium: Encloses a single muscle fiber
- Perimysium: Wraps around a fascicle (bundle)
of muscle fibers.
- Epimysium: Covers entire skeletal muscle

Aponeuroses
: Attach muscles indirectly to bones, cartilage or
connective tissue, Provides durability and conserve
space.

Smooth muscles:
- Involuntary
- No striation
- Found mainly in the walls of hollow organs.
- Single nucleus, spindle shaped
- Two-layers- Alternately contract and relax,
they change the size and shape of organ.
Cardiac muscles:
- Found only in heart
- Forms heart wall
- Striated, involuntary
- Cushioned by small amounts of connective
tissue.
- Branching cells joined by special junctions
called intercalated discs.
- Contracts at a fairly steady rate due to the
pacemaker.
- One nucleus

Skeletal muscle functions:

Produce movement: all movement from the human body results from muscle
contraction.

Maintain posture: function almost continuously making one tiny adjustment after the
other.

Stabilize joints: muscle tendons are extremely important in reinforcing and stabilizing
joints that have poorly fitting articulating surfaces.

Generating heat: As ATP is used to power muscle contraction nearly three quarters of
its energy escapes as heat. Skeletal muscles accounts for at least 40 percent of body mass.
Muscle type most responsible for heat generation.

Microscopic anatomy of Skeletal muscles

Sacrolemma: Plasma Membrane.
Myofibrils: Long organelles inside muscle
fibers.

- Alternating light (I) and Dark

(A) bands along the length of the perfectly aligned myofibrils

Light (I) Band- contains only thin filaments= Actin filaments

- Midline interruption, dark area called the Z disc.(anchored)

Dark (A) Band- contains the entire length of the thick filament = myosin filament
- lighter centered called the H Zone
- Composed of protein myosin (heads)
- The M line in the center of the H zone contains tiny protein rods that hold
adjacent thick filaments together.
 - Has ATPase enzymes which split ATP to generate the power for muscle
contraction

- Myosin and actin overlap

Sacromere: contractile unit of a muscle fiber.

• At rest there is a base zone

that locks actin filaments
called H zone.
• Contraction occurs and the
actin containing filaments
slide towards each other into
the center of the sacromere.
These light zones disappear
because myosin and actin
filaments overlap.
•

Sacroplasmic Reticulum (SR)

- Stores and releases calcium
- Surrounds the myofibril

Stimulation and Contraction of Single Skeletal Muscle Cells:

 Excitability: (also called responsiveness or irritability)—ability to receive and

respond to a stimulus
 Contractility—ability to shorten when an adequate stimulus is received
 Extensibility—ability of muscle cells to be stretched
 Elasticity—ability to recoil and resume resting length after stretching

The Nerve Stimulus and Action Potential:

 Skeletal muscles must be stimulated by a motor neuron (nerve cell) to contract
  Motor unit —
one motor
neuron and all
the skeletal
muscle cells
stimulated by
that neuron

Neuromuscular junction- Association site of axon terminal of the motor neuron and
muscle

Synaptic cleft
 Gap between nerve and
muscle
 Nerve and muscle do not
make contact
 Area between nerve and
muscle is filled with
interstitial fluid

 Neurotransmitter impulse -Chemical released by nerve upon arrival of nerve

- The neurotransmitter for skeletal muscle is acetylcholine
 Acetylcholine attaches to receptors on the sarcolemma
  Sarcolemma becomes permeable to sodium (Na+)
 More Na+ enters then K+ leaves. This gives the cell
interior and excess of positive ions, which reverses the
electrical conditions of the sacrolemma and opens more
channels that allow Na+ entry only.

Action Potential: is unstoppable, it travels over the

entire surface of the sacrolemma, conducting the
electrical impulse from one end of the cell to the other.
The result is contraction of the muscle cell.
- While the action potential is occurring,
acetylcholine, which begins the process,
is broken down to acetic acid and choline
by enzymes.
- The muscle cell relaxes until stimulated
by the next round of acetylcholine
release.

The Sliding Filament Theory of Muscle Contraction:

Each cross bridges attaches and detaches several times during a contraction, generating
tension that helps to pull the thin filaments toward the center of the sacromere. The cell
shortens.
 Contraction of Skeletal Muscle

 Within a skeletal muscle, not all fibers may be stimulated during the same interval
 Different combinations of muscle fiber contractions may give differing responses
 Graded responses—different degrees of skeletal muscle shortening can be
produced by changing
 The frequency of muscle stimulation
 The number of muscle cells being stimulated at one time

Types of Graded Responses

 Twitch
 Single, brief contraction
 Not a normal muscle function
 Tetanus (summing of contractions)
 One contraction is immediately followed by another
 The muscle does not completely
return to a resting state
 The effects are added

 Unfused (incomplete) tetanus

 Some relaxation occurs between contractions
 The results are summed

 Fused (complete) tetanus

 No evidence of relaxation before the following contractions
 The result is a sustained muscle contraction

Muscle Response to Strong Stimuli

 Muscle force depends upon the number of fibers stimulated

 More fibers contracting results in greater muscle tension
 Muscles can continue to contract unless they run out of energy
 Primary role is to produce smooth and prolonged muscle contraction.

Energy for Muscle Contraction

 Initially, muscles use stored ATP for energy

 ATP bonds are broken to release energy
 Only 4–6 seconds worth of ATP is stored by
muscles
 After this initial time, other pathways must be utilized to
produce ATP

 1. Direct phosphorylation of ADP by creatine phosphate

(CP)
 Muscle cells store CP
 CP is a high-energy molecule
 After ATP is depleted, ADP is left
 CP transfers energy to ADP, to regenerate ATP
 CP supplies are exhausted in less than 15 seconds
 2. Aerobic respiration
 Glucose is broken down to carbon
dioxide and water, releasing
energy (ATP)
 This is a slower reaction that
requires continuous oxygen
 A series of metabolic pathways
occur in the mitochondria
 95 percent of the ATP used for
muscle activity comes from
aerobic respiration

 3. Anaerobic glycolysis and lactic acid

formation
 Reaction that breaks down glucose
without oxygen
 Glucose is broken down to pyruvic acid
to produce some ATP
 Pyruvic acid is converted to lactic acid
 This reaction is not as efficient, but is fast
 Huge amounts of glucose are
needed
 Lactic acid produces muscle
fatigue

Muscle Fatigue and Oxygen Deficit

 When a muscle is fatigued, it is unable to contract even with a stimulus
 Common cause for muscle fatigue is oxygen debt
 Oxygen must be “repaid” to tissue to remove oxygen deficit
 Oxygen is required to get rid of accumulated lactic acid
 Increasing acidity (from lactic acid) and lack of ATP causes the muscle to
contract less

Types of muscle contraction

 Isotonic contractions
 Myofilaments are able to slide past each other during contractions
 The muscle shortens and movement occurs
 Isometric contractions
 Tension in the muscles increases
 The muscle is unable to shorten or produce movement
  They are trying to slide but the muscle pitted against some more or less
immovable object.

Muscle Tone
 Some fibers are contracted even in a relaxed muscle
 Different fibers contract at different times to provide muscle tone
 The process of stimulating various fibers is under involuntary control

Effect of Exercise on Muscles

 Exercise increases muscle size, strength, and endurance
 Aerobic (endurance) exercise (biking, jogging) results in stronger, more
flexible muscles with greater resistance to fatigue
 Makes body metabolism more efficient
 Improves digestion, coordination
 Resistance (isometric) exercise (weight lifting) increases muscle size and
strength

Five Golden Rules of Skeletal Muscle

Activity

Muscles and Body Movements

 Movement is attained due to a muscle moving an
attached bone
 Muscles are attached to at least two points

Origin: Attachment to a moveable bone Insertion:

Attachment to an immovable bone

Types of Ordinary Body Movements

 Flexion
 Decreases the angle of the joint
 Brings two bones closer together
  Typical of hinge joints like knee and elbow
 Extension
 Opposite of flexion
 Increases angle between two bones
 Rotation
 Movement of a bone around its longitudinal axis
 Common in ball-and-socket joints
 Example is when you move atlas around the dens of axis (shake your
head “no”)
 Abduction
 Movement of a limb away from the midline
 Adduction
 Opposite of abduction
 Movement of a limb toward the midline
 Circumduction
 Combination of flexion, extension, abduction, and adduction
 Common in ball-and-socket joints
 Dorsiflexion
 Lifting the foot so that the superior
surface approaches the shin
 Plantar flexion
 Depressing the foot (pointing the toes)
 Inversion
 Turn sole of foot medially
 Eversion
 Turn sole of foot laterally

 Supination
 Forearm rotates laterally so palm faces anteriorly
 Pronation
 Forearm rotates medially so palm faces posteriorly
 Opposition
 Move thumb to touch the tips of other fingers on the same hand

Types of Muscles
 Prime mover—muscle with the major responsibility for a certain movement
 Antagonist—muscle that opposes or reverses a prime mover
 Synergist—muscle that aids a prime mover in a movement and helps prevent
rotation
 Fixator—stabilizes the origin of a prime mover

Naming Skeletal Muscles

 By direction of muscle fibers
 Example: Rectus (straight)
 By relative size of the muscle
 Example: Maximus (largest
  By location of the muscle
 Example: Temporalis (temporal bone)
 By number of origins
 Example: Triceps (three heads)
 By location of the muscle’s origin and insertion
 Example: Sterno (on the sternum)
 By shape of the muscle
 Example: Deltoid (triangular)
 By action of the muscle
 Example: Flexor and extensor (flexes or extends a bone)

Convergent: Fasicles converge

toward a single insertion tendon.
Fusiform: results in a spindle
shaped muscle with an expanded
belly.
Parallel: the length of the fasicles
runs parallel to the long axis of the
muscle.
Circular: typically surrounding
external body openings which they
close by contracting.
Pennate: pattern, short fasicles
attach obliquely to a central tendon.
Unipennate: the fasicle only
inserts into only one side of the
tendon
Bipennate/Multipennate: if
the fasicles insert into opposite
sides of the tendon or from several
different sides.

Head and Neck Muscles

 Facial muscles
 Frontalis—raises eyebrows,
covers frontal bone
 Orbicularis oculi—has fibers
that run in circles around the eyes.
Closes eyes, squints, blinks,
winks
 Orbicularis oris—Circular
muscles or the lip. Closes mouth
and protrudes the lips
  Buccinator—flattens the cheek, chews
 Zygomaticus—raises corners of the mouth “smiling”
 Chewing muscles
 Masseter—closes the jaw and elevates mandible
 Temporalis—synergist of the masseter, closes jaw

 Neck muscles
 Platysma—pulls the corners of the mouth
inferiorly
 Sternocleidomastoid—flexes the neck,
rotates the head
 Anterior muscles
 Pectoralis major—adducts and flexes the
humerus
 Intercostal muscles
 External intercostals—raise rib cage
during inhalation
 Internal intercostals—depress the
rib cage to move air out of the lungs
when you exhale forcibly

Muscles of Trunk, Shoulder, Arm

 Muscles of the abdominal girdle
 Rectus abdominis—flexes vertebral
column and compresses abdominal
contents (defecation, childbirth, forced
breathing)
 External and internal obliques—flex
vertebral column; rotate trunk and bend it
laterally
 Transversus abdominis—compresses
abdominal contents, deepest muscle of
the abdominal wall.

 Posterior muscles
 Trapezius—elevates, depresses, adducts,
and stabilizes the scapula
 Latissimus dorsi—extends and adducts
the humerus
 Erector spinae—back extension
 Quadratus lumborum—flexes the spine
laterally
 Deltoid—arm abduction(injections of
less than 5 ml)
  Biceps brachii—supinates forearm, flexes elbow
 Brachialis—elbow flexion
 Brachioradialis—weak muscle
 Triceps brachii—elbow extension (antagonist to
biceps brachii)

Muscles of the Lower Limb

 Gluteus maximus—hip
extension
 Gluteus medius—hip abduction, steadies pelvis when
walking
 Iliopsoas—hip flexion, keeps the upper body from falling
backward when standing erect
 Adductor muscles—adduct the thighs

 Muscles causing movement at the knee joint

 Hamstring group—thigh extension and knee flexion
 Biceps femoris
 Semimembranosus
 Semitendinosus

 Muscles causing movement at the knee

joint
 Sartorius—flexes the thigh
 Quadriceps group—extends the
knee
 Rectus femoris
 Vastus muscles (three)
 Muscles causing movement at ankle and foot
 Tibialis anterior—dorsiflexion and foot inversion
 Extensor digitorum longus—toe extension and dorsiflexion of the foot
 Fibularis muscles—plantar flexion, everts the foot
 Soleus—plantar flexion