General Mechanism of Muscle Contraction

General Mechanism of Muscle Contraction

The initiation and execution of muscle contraction occur in the following sequential steps.

     1. An action potential travels along a motor nerve to its endings on muscle fibers.

     2. At each ending, the nerve secretes a small amount of the neurotransmitter substance acetylcholine.

     3.   The acetylcholine acts on a local area of the muscle fiber membrane to open multiple “acetylcholine-gated” channels through protein molecules floating in the membrane.

     4. Opening of the acetylcholine-gated channels allows large quantities of sodium ions to diffuse to the interior of the muscle fiber membrane. This initiates an action potential at the membrane.

     5. The action potential travels along the muscle fiber membrane in the same way that action potentials travel along nerve fiber membranes.

     6. The action potential depolarizes the muscle membrane, and much of the action potential electricity flows through the center of the muscle fiber. Here it causes the sarcoplasmic reticulum to release large quantities of calcium ions that have been stored within this reticulum.

     7.     The calcium ions initiate attractive forces between the actin and myosin filaments, causing them to slide alongside each other, which is the contractile process.

      8.    After a fraction of a second, the calcium ions are pumped back into the sarcoplasmic reticulum by a Ca++ membrane pump, and they remain stored in the reticulum until a new muscle action potential comes along; this removal of calcium ions from the myofibrils causes the muscle contraction to cease.

We now describe the molecular machinery of the muscle contractile process.