Muscle Tissues

This set of flashcards covers key vocabulary related to muscle tissues, their types, structures, and functions based on the provided lecture notes.

Skeletal Muscle

A type of muscle tissue that is multinucleated, striated, and controlled by the somatic (voluntary) nervous system.

Smooth Muscle

Involuntary muscle tissue found in the walls of internal organs, lacking striations and controlled by the autonomic nervous system.

Cardiac Muscle

Striated muscle tissue found only in the heart, responsible for pumping blood and controlled involuntarily.

Sarcomere

A repeating unit of contractile proteins found in the myofibrils of skeletal and cardiac muscle cells.

Sliding Filament Theory

The explanation of how muscle contraction occurs through the sliding of actin and myosin filaments over one another.

Troponin

A protein that binds calcium ions and allows muscle contraction by exposing binding sites on actin.

Myofibrils

Long, thread-like structures in muscle cells that contain the contractile proteins actin and myosin.

Intercalated Discs

Specialized connections between cardiac muscle cells that contain gap junctions and desmosomes.

Gap Junctions

Areas of low electrical resistance in smooth muscle that allow the propagation of action potentials among interconnected cells.

Muscular Thermoregulation

The process of maintaining body temperature through heat production during muscle contractions.