Electrically conditioned skeletal muscle can provide the continuous power source for cardiac assistance devices. Optimization of the available sustained power from in vivo skeletal muscle requires knowledge of its metabolic utilization and constraints. A thermistor-based technique has been developed to measure temperature changes and to provide a relative estimate for metabolic utilization of i...

BACKGROUND Acute respiratory acidosis is associated with alterations in diaphragm performance. The authors compared the effects of respiratory acidosis and metabolic acidosis in the rat diaphragm in vitro. METHODS Diaphragmatic strips were stimulated in vitro, and mechanical and energetic variables were measured, cross-bridge kinetics calculated, and the effects of fatigue evaluated. An extra...

A calf muscle ergometer, designed for use in a standard whole-body MR scanner, is described. The instrument allows isotonic or isometric calf muscle exercise over a continuous range of work loads from 0 to individual maximum work output. Work output may be recorded on a strip chart recorder. A sound encoding provides an effective guidance for the subject tested to accurately reproduce his perfo...

Background. Abdominal fat accumulation, also known as central obesity, is a major risk factor for many degenerative diseases, including cardiovascular disease and diabetes. Isotonic and isometric workouts can be used to avoid the buildup of fat in the belly, and young ladies should measure their waist circumference regularly. Objectives. This study showed how isotonic and isometric exercise af...

Peripheral rat diaphragmatic lymphatic vessels, endowed with intrinsic spontaneous contractility, were in vivo filled with fluorescent dextrans and microspheres and subsequently studied ex vivo in excised diaphragmatic samples. Changes in diameter and lymph velocity were detected, in a vessel segment, during spontaneous lymphatic smooth muscle contraction and upon activation, through electrical...

To evaluate whether alpha-smooth muscle actin (alpha-SMA) plays a role in fibroblast contractility, we first compared the contractile activity of rat subcutaneous fibroblasts (SCFs), expressing low levels of alpha-SMA, with that of lung fibroblasts (LFs), expressing high levels of alpha-SMA, with the use of silicone substrates of different stiffness degrees. On medium stiffness substrates the p...

Bundles of the curarized semitendinosus muscle of the frog were fixed during isotonic (afterload) and isometric contraction and the length of the A and I bands investigated by electron microscopy. The sarcomere length, during afterload contraction initiated at 25 per cent stretch, varied depending on the afterload applied between 3.0 and 1.2 micro, i.e. the shortening amounted to 5 to 50 per ce...

Mitsui and Ohshima (2008) criticized the power-stroke model for muscle contraction and proposed a new model. In the new model, about 41% of the myosin heads are bound to actin filaments, and each bound head forms a complex MA(3) with three actin molecules A1, A2 and A3 forming the crossbridge. The complex translates along the actin filament cooperating with each other. The new model well explai...