Muscle Biology

Muscle Biology: The Life History of a Muscle tells the story of a muscle, from its embryonic origins to its condition at the end of life. This book uses the leg muscle, a tightly knitted group, the quadriceps femoris, which consists of four individual muscles (rectus femoris, vastus lateralis, vastus medialis and vastus intermedius) to provide an in-depth look at skeletal muscle biology. It covers the development of the muscle, muscle pathology, changes in the muscle from training and muscle regeneration.

Muscle Biology: The Life History of a Muscle conveys basic specific information about the various aspects of a muscle’s existence and educates readers to the fact that muscle can be viewed as a continuum of developmental events so that readers get a broad review of the essential ways that muscles adapt to their environment over the course of a lifetime. The book discusses both normal and abnormal changes in the muscle, the mechanisms behind those changes and how to mitigate deleterious changes from disease, ‘normal” aging, and disuse/lack of physical activity. This is a must-have reference for students, researchers and practitioners in need of a comprehensive overview of muscle biology.

• Provides an overview of muscle biology over the course of one’s entire lifespan
• Explains the important elements of each aspect of muscle biology without drowning the reader in excessive detail
• Contains over 300 illustrations and includes chapter summaries

Upper undergraduate, graduates, postdocs, professors and researchers studying biology, anatomy, physiology, developmental biology, pathophysiology, aging/gerontology, kinesiology/movement science and those across the life sciences interested in muscles/muscle biology as well as practitioners in physical therapy and occupational therapy

1.  Introduction

2.  Embryonic origins of muscles
 A. Origins and cellular migrations
 B. Initial morphogenesis
 C. Myogenesis
      1. Single muscle fibers
      2. Muscle tissue
      3. Whole muscle
 D. Cranial vs. trunk muscles

3.  Postnatal development and maturation of muscle
 A. Normal growth
 B. Structure of a mature muscle fiber – light microscopy to molecular organization
 C. Structure of a mature muscle – include architecture
      1. Vasculature
      2.  Innervation – both motor and sensory

4.  Muscle contraction
 A. Functional components
 B. Contractile physiology – single fiber
 C. Motor units
 D. Whole muscle contraction
 E. Whole limb movements

5. Muscle metabolism
 A. Storage
 B. In relation to contraction
      1. During contraction
      2. Fatigue and recovery

6. Muscle-nerve interrelationships
 A. Motor
 B. Sensory

7. Adaptation – mechanisms
 A. Hypertrophy
 B. Endurance
 C. Lengthening and shortening

8. Muscle damage and regeneration

9.  Muscle pathology – e.g. muscular dystrophy

10. Muscle atrophy
 A. Inactivity, bed rest, space
 B. Denervation atrophy (paralysis)
      1. Upper motor neuron lesions
      2.  Lower motor neuron lesions
 C. Recovery from atrophy
      1. Physical therapy
      2. Electrical stimulation

11. Muscle aging
 A. Normal aging
      1. Mass and structure
      2. Function
      3. Nerve relationships
      4. Balance and innervation?
 C. Training effects