Muscle Structure Ans Neuromuscular Junction Flashcards
(182 cards)
What are the three types of muscle tissue?
Skeletal smooth and cardiac muscle
Is all muscle tissue excitable
Yes
Is all muscle tissue extensible
Yes
Is all muscle tissue under voluntary control
No, only skeletal muscle is under voluntary control
Is skeletal muscle tissue only under voluntary control
No, skeletal muscle can be controlled voluntarily or unconsciously, like the activation of the diaphragm and postural control muscles
Which muscle structure is the myocyte?
Each individual muscle fiber found in a muscle fascicle is a myocyte or muscle cell
What element of muscle structure gives the muscle it’s strength
The bundling of thousands of muscle fibers with its connective tissue
What is the sarcolemma of a myocyte?
The cell membrane
What are T tubules in the muscle fiber
Tiny tunnels that project downwards from the surface into the center of the muscle fiber
What is the cytoplasm of a myocyte called?
Sarcoplasm
What is the smooth endoplasmic reticulum of a myocyte called and what is its function?
Sarco plasmic reticulum, and it stores calcium to be released into the sarcoplasm to cause contraction of the myocyte
What are the long filaments found in the sarcoplasm?
Myofibrils
(Thin Actin and thick myosin)
What are sarcomeres
Segments of myofibrils with actin and myosin, filaments, arranged into segments shorter than the length of the myocyte
Why does skeletal muscle appear striated under a microscope?
Each myocyte is made up of hundreds of sarcomeres, and under a microscope, the myosin filaments look dark, while the actin filaments look light
What is a motor neuron?
And efferent nerve cell that sends motor signals from the brain down through the spinal cord and out from the spinal cord to the target muscle
What neurotransmitter is released at the neuromuscular junction by the motor neuron
Acetyl choline
What happens when the motor neuron releases acetylcholine at the neuromuscular junction?
Acetylcholine is taken up by acetylcholine receptors on the sarcolemma, which causes rapid shifts in ions to occur across the sarcolemma and down the T tubules to bring calcium into the Myocyte. Then the sarcoplasmic reticulum releases its own calcium into the sarcoplasm
The calcium flow into the myocyte causes the actin and myosin to bind and pull in on each other. This causes thousands of sarcomeres within each myocyte to contract all at once.
How is the Sarco plasmic reticulum involved in the relaxation of muscle contraction?
After a muscle contraction, the sarcoplasmic reticulum takes up the calcium ions and stores them again, and without calcium, the contraction ends, and the muscle relaxes
Is cardiac muscle tissue under voluntary control
No
Is cardiac muscle tissue striated
Yes
Do cardio myocytes have T-tubules, Sarcoplasmic reticulum, and sarcomeres like the skeletal muscle
Yes
What is the function of intercalated discs in cardiac muscle tissue?
To connect the cardio myocyte to adjacent cardio myocytes
What are pacemaker cells?
Specialized cardio myocytes that generate and conduct action potentials in the cardiac muscle tissue
What allows for coordinated contraction of cardiac muscle tissue?
As cardiac pacemaker cells generate an action potential, the action potential spreads to neighboring cardio, myocytes since ions can flow through intercalated discs to spread the action potential and cause coordinated contraction of cardiac muscle tissue