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Differently oriented cardiac muscle fibers. Cardiac muscle Cardiac sarcomere structure . Cardiac muscle tissue or myocardium forms the bulk of the heart. The heart wall is a three-layered structure with a thick layer of myocardium sandwiched between the inner endocardium and the outer epicardium (also known as the visceral pericardium).
A skeletal muscle cell is long and threadlike with many nuclei and is called a muscle fiber. [3] Muscle cells develop from embryonic precursor cells called myoblasts. [1] Skeletal muscle cells form by fusion of myoblasts to produce multinucleated cells in a process known as myogenesis. [4] [5] Skeletal muscle cells and cardiac muscle cells both ...
The Purkinje fibers are further specialized to rapidly conduct impulses (having numerous fast voltage-gated sodium channels and mitochondria, and fewer myofibrils, than the surrounding muscle tissue). Purkinje fibers take up stain differently from the surrounding muscle cells because of having relatively fewer myofibrils than other cardiac cells.
Cardiac muscle has some similarities to neurons and skeletal muscle, as well as important unique properties. Like a neuron, a given myocardial cell has a negative membrane potential when at rest. Stimulation above a threshold value induces the opening of voltage-gated ion channels and a flood of cations into the cell.
Cardiac muscle consists of individual heart muscle cells (cardiomyocytes) connected by intercalated discs to work as a single functional syncytium. By contrast, skeletal muscle consists of multinucleated muscle fibers and exhibits no intercalated discs.
T-tubules are tubules formed from the same phospholipid bilayer as the surface membrane or sarcolemma of skeletal or cardiac muscle cells. [1] They connect directly with the sarcolemma at one end before travelling deep within the cell, forming a network of tubules with sections running both perpendicular (transverse) to and parallel (axially) to the sarcolemma. [1]
Because of the gap junctions, the pacemaker cells transfer the depolarization to other cardiac muscle fibers, in order to contract in unison. [5] Signals from motor neurons cause skeletal muscle fibers to depolarize and therefore release calcium ions from the sarcoplasmic reticulum. The calcium drives the movement of myosin and actin filaments.
The protein complex composed of actin and myosin, contractile proteins, is sometimes referred to as actomyosin.In striated skeletal and cardiac muscle, the actin and myosin filaments each have a specific and constant length in the order of a few micrometers, far less than the length of the elongated muscle cell (up to several centimeters in some skeletal muscle cells). [5]