muscle/nervous tissue

Name: skeletal muscle

Description: long, multinucleated striated cells (muscle fibers)

Function: allows for voluntary movement, contraction pulls on bones

Location: attached to the skeleton, forms the “flesh” of the body

Name: smooth (visceral) muscle

Description: no striations are visible, cells are spindle shaped

Function: constricts or enlarges organs, involuntary & slow

Location: walls of hollow organs such as the stomach, bladder, uterus, blood vessels

Name: cardiac muscle

Description: uninucleated short cells that fit tightly together at junctions called. intercalated discs

Function: allows ions to pass resulting in rapid electrical impulse for involuntary movement (heart beat)

Location: ONLY in heart

Name: nerve

Description: cytoplasm pulled into long extensions called neuroglia (up to 3 feet)

Function:

• irritability: ability to detect and respond to a stimulus, converting it into a nerve impulse.

• conductivity: ability to transmit that nerve impulse along the neuron and to other cells, such as other neurons, muscles, or glands. 

Location: nervous system (brain, spinal cord, nerves)