MUSCLES

Muscles:
• There are three types of muscle tissue
1.Smooth,
2.Cardiac,
3. Skeletal
• These differ in their
1.Cell structure,
2. Body location
3 .How they are stimulated to contract
Smooth Muscle:
• Smooth muscle has no striations
• It is involuntary,means that we cannot consciously
control it.
• It otherwise known as visceral, nonstriated, and
involuntary muscles
• It found mainly in the walls of hollow visceral organs such as
:
1. Stomach, 2.Urinary bladder, 3.Respiratory passages
• Smooth muscle propels substances along a definite tract, or
pathway, within the body.
• Smooth muscle cells are spindle-shaped
• It have a single nucleus, and are surrounded by scant
endomysium
• They are arranged in layers
• There are two such layers, one running circularly and the
other longitudinally.
• As the two layers alternately contract and relax, they
change the size and shape of the organ.
• Smooth muscle contraction is slow and sustained.

Examples of Smooth Muscle:

• Moving food through the digestive tract
• Emptying the bowels and bladder
Cardiac Muscle:
• It is found in only one place in the body—the heart,
• In heart it forms the bulk of heart walls.
• The heart serves as a pump, it propelling blood into
the blood vessels and to all tissues of the body.
• Cardiac muscle is striated, and it is involuntary and
cannot be consciously controlled by us.
• It otherwise known as cardiac, striated, and
involuntary muscles.
• The cardiac cells are cushioned by small
amounts of soft connective tissue (endomysium)
• They are arranged in spiral or 8–shaped bundles
• When the heart contracts, its internal chambers
become smaller
• It forcing the blood into the large arteries leaving
the heart.
• Cardiac muscle fibers are branching cells joined by
special junctions called intercalated disc
• The structural features and the spiral arrangement
of the muscle bundles in the heart allow heart
activity
• Cardiac muscle usually contracts at a fairly steady
rate
• But the heart can be stimulated by the nervous
system at high rate for short periods.
Skeletal Muscle:
• Skeletal muscle fibers are packaged into the organs
called skeletal muscles
• skeletal muscles attach to the body’s skeleton.
• Skeletal muscles cover our bony “underpinnings,”
• They help to form the much smoother contours of
the body.
• Skeletal muscle fibers are huge, cigar-shaped,
multinucleate cells.
Skeletal muscle fibers :
• They are the largest of the muscle fiber types
• It ranging up to 30 cm (nearly 1 foot) in length.
• They are hardworking muscles
Example:
• Antigravity muscles of the hip
• They are so big and they can be seen with the naked
eye
 STRUCTURE AND
PROPERTIES OF
SKELETAL MUSCLE
• Skeletal muscle is also known as striated muscle because the
fibers present in skeletal muscle have clear stripes
• Skeletal muscle is also known as Voluntary muscle because
this muscle type subject to conscious control.
• skeletal muscles are often activated by reflexes (involuntary)
• A skeletal muscle may sometimes contain hundreds of
thousands of muscle fibres as well as blood vessels and
nerves.
• The muscle, providing internal structure and scaffolding
• It is an extensive network of connective tissue.
Epimysium:
• The entire muscle is covered in a connective tissue sheath
called Epimysium (covering structure)
Fascicle:
• Within the muscle, the cells are collected into separate
bundles called Fascicles
Perimysium:
Each fascicle is covered in its own connective tissue sheath
called the Perimysium.
Endomysium:
• The individual muscle cells are wrapped (fold)
in a fine connective tissue layer called the Endomysium.
• These connective tissue layers runs the length of the muscle.
• The connective tissue layers bind (attach) the fibers into a
highly organised structure, and blend (merge) together at
each end of the muscle to form the Tendon
Tendon:
• Tendons secures the muscle to bone.
• Tendon is rope-like, but sometimes it forms a broad sheet
called an Aponeurosis, e.g. the occipitofrontalis muscle.
An aponeurosis is a thin sheath of connective tissue that helps connect your
muscles to your bones
 An aponeurosis is a thin sheath of connective tissue that
helps connect your muscles to your bones

• The occipitalis muscle functions to move

the eyebrows and wrinkle the forehead,
• The multiple connective tissue layers are important for
transmitting the force of contraction from each individual
muscle cell to its points of attachment to the skeleton.
• The fleshy part of the muscle is called the Belly.
 Properties of Skeletal Muscle Activity
• 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 their
resting length after being stretched.
• A stimulus is anything that can trigger a physical or behavioral
change.
i) Microscopic Anatomy of Skeletal Muscle
• Under the microscope, skeletal muscle cells are
roughly cylindrical in shape, lying parallel to one
another,
• They have distinctive banded appearance consisting
of alternate dark and light stripes.
• Individual fibers may be very long, up to 35 cm in the
longest muscles.
• Each cell has several nuclei because the cells are so
large.
• It found under the cell membrane called the
Sarcolemma.
Sarcoplasm:
• The cytoplasm of muscle cells, also called Sarcoplasm
• It is packed with tiny filaments running longitudinally along
the length of the muscle; (running lengthwise)
• These are the contractile filaments.-for muscle contraction
Mitochondria:
• There are many mitochondria in Anatomy of Skeletal
Muscle
• Mitochondria is essential for producing Adenosine
Triphosphate (ATP) from glucose and oxygen to power the
contractile mechanism.
Powerhouse of the cell
Myoglobin:
• It is a specialized oxygen-binding substance called
Myoglobin
• It is similar to the hemoglobin of red blood cells and
stores oxygen within the muscle.
• There are extensive intracellular which stores
calcium
• This calcium is released into the sarcoplasm by
nervous stimulation of muscle
• It is essential for the contractile activity of the
myofilaments.
when the nervous system sends a signal to the muscle, causing it to contract
Myofibril
• Myofibrils are long protein blocks that make up the
majority of muscle fibers. They are responsible for
muscle contraction and relaxation
• Bundles of myofilaments
• Myofibrils are aligned to give distinct bands
• I Band = Light Band
• A Band = Dark Band
Sarcoplasmic reticulum
• Sarcoplasmic reticulum are specialized smooth
endoplasmic reticulum
• The interconnecting tubules and sacs of the SR
surround each and every myofibril
• It is used for storage of calcium
Sarcomeres:
• Sarcomeres are two types of contractile
myofilament within the muscle fibre, called thick
and thin, arranged in repeating units
Myofilament:
• Myofilaments are tiny protein filaments in
muscle cells that provide the power for muscles
to contract
Organization of Sarcomeres:
Mysoin:
• The thick filaments,made of the protein myosin,
• They are seen as dark bands(A) under the
microscope.
• They also contain ATPase enzymes, which split
ATP to generate the power for muscle
contraction
Actin:
• The thin filaments are made of the protein
actin and regulatory proteins
• They are seen as lighter bands(I) under the
microscope.
• Myosin filaments have heads (extensions, or cross
bridges)
• At each end sarcomere is bounded by dense stripe called Z
line
• The actin filaments are attached to Z line
• The myosin filaments are lying in the middle of the
sarcomere
• Here Myosin filaments will overlapping with actin.
• The M line is a dark line that runs through the center of a sarcomere,
acts as a shock absorber in contracting muscle
BARZONE:
• At rest, there is a bare zone that lacks actin
filaments – the H zone
MECHANISM OF MUSCLE CONTRACTION:
• Mechanism of muscle contraction will be done by sliding
filament theory
• This theory states that contraction of muscles fiber take
place by sliding of thin filament over the thick filament
• Muscle contraction is initiated by a signal sent by central
nervous system via motor neuron.
1. When the action potential spreads from the nerve along
the sarcolemma, it is conducted deep into the muscle cell
through a special network of channels that run through
the sarcoplasm, and releases calcium
2. Calcium triggers the binding of myosin to the actin
filament forming so-called cross-bridges.
3. ATP then provides the energy for the two filaments to
slide over each other, pulling the Z lines at each end of the
sarcomere closer to one another, shortening the
sarcomere.
4. This is called the sliding filament theory. If enough fibers
are stimulated the whole muscle will shorten (contract).
5. The muscle relaxes when nerve stimulation stops. Calcium
is pumped back into its intracellular storage areas, which
breaks the cross-bridges between the actin and myosin
filaments.
6.They then slide back into their starting positions,
lengthening the sarcomeres and returning the muscle to its
original length.