Muscular

Tissue

Lecture slides prepared by Curtis DeFriez, Weber State University

Copyright © John Wiley and Sons, Inc. All rights reserved.
 Functions of Muscular Tissue
Like nervous tissue, muscles are excitable or "irritable”
they have the ability to respond to a stimulus
Unlike nerves, however, muscles are also:
Contractible (they can shorten
in length)
Extensible (they can extend or
stretch)
Elastic (they can return to their
original shape)

Copyright © John Wiley and Sons, Inc. All rights reserved.

 Functions of Muscular Tissue
Muscle makes up a large percentage of the body’s weight
Their main functions are to:
Create motion – muscles work with nerves, bones, and joints to produce body

movements

Stabilize body positions and maintain posture

Store substances within the body using sphincters

Move substances by peristaltic contractions

Generate heat through thermogenesis

Copyright © John Wiley and Sons, Inc. All rights reserved.

Three Types of Muscular Tissue

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Three Types of Muscular Tissue

(a) Skeletal muscle

(b) Cardiac muscle (c) Visceral smooth muscle

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Skeletal Muscle

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Skeletal Muscle
The terminal processes of a motor
neuron in close proximity to the
sarcolemma of a skeletal muscle fiber

Motor neuron

Sarcolemma

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 The Skeletal Muscle Fiber
Increasing the level of magnification, the myofibrils are
seen to be composed
of filaments
Thick filaments

Thing filaments

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 The Skeletal Muscle Fiber
The basic functional unit of skeletal muscle fibers is the
sarcomere: An arrangement of thick and thin filaments
sandwiched between two Z discs

A scanning electron micrograph of a sarcomere

Copyright © John Wiley and Sons, Inc. All rights reserved.

 Muscle Proteins
Myofibrils are built from three groups of proteins
Contractile proteins generate force during contraction

Regulatory proteins help switch the contraction process on and off

Structural proteins keep the thick and thin filaments in proper alignment and

link the myofibrils to the sarcolemma and extracellular matrix

Copyright © John Wiley and Sons, Inc. All rights reserved.

Excitation-Contraction Coupling
We will come back to the term excitation-contraction
coupling in a little bit
Before we can describe the
entire process, from
thinking of moving a
muscle to actual contraction
of sarcomeres, we must
first explore the processes
that occur at the neuromuscular junction

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 Neuromuscular Junction
Excitation-Contraction coupling (EC coupling) involves
events at the junction between a motor neuron and a
skeletal muscle fiber

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Muscle Contraction

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 Imbalances of Homeostasis
Aging
In part due to decreased levels of physical activity, with aging humans undergo a
slow, progressive loss of skeletal muscle mass that is replaced largely by fibrous
connective tissue and adipose tissue
Muscle strength at 85 is about half that at age 25
Compared to the other two fiber types, the relative number of slow oxidative
fibers appears to increase

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