Glossary
- All-or-None Fiber Contractions
- each cell stimulated by the neuron contracts fully or not at all
- Atrophy
- loss of structural proteins from muscle fibers
- Complete Tetanus
- continuous fused contraction
- Contraction Phase
- twitch contraction phase when tension increases
- Hypertrophy
- addition of structural proteins to muscle fibers
- Incomplete Tetanus
- the muscle goes through quick cycles of contraction with a short relaxation phase for each; as the force production increases a slight decline happens before beginning to increase again. This decline in force production is the partial relaxation between contractions and lends a sawtooth appearance to incomplete tetanus on the myogram
- Isometric Contraction
- muscle contraction that occurs with no change in muscle length
- Isotonic Contraction
- muscle contraction that involves changes in muscle length
- Latent Period
- the time when a twitch does not produce contraction
- Motor Unit
- A single somatic motor neuron and all the skeletal muscle fibers that it innervates
- Muscle Tone
- low levels of muscle contraction that occur when a muscle is not producing movement
- Muscle Twitch
- the cycle of contraction and relaxation when a single action potential from a somatic motor neuron will produce a single contraction in the muscle fibers
- Myogram
- an instrument that measures the amount of tension produced by a muscle twitch over time
- Oxygen Debt
- amount of oxygen needed to compensate for ATP produced without oxygen during muscle contraction
- Relaxation Phase
- period after twitch contraction when tension decreases
- Recruitment
- increase in the number of motor units involved in contraction
- Wave Summation
- addition of successive neural stimuli to produce greater contraction
Grant and Other Information
Except where otherwise noted, this work by The Community College Consortium for Bioscience Credentials is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Text from BioBook licensed under CC BY NC SA and Boundless Biology Open Textbook licensed under CC BY SA.
Other text from OpenStaxCollege licensed under CC BY 3.0. Modified by Alice Rudolph, M.A., Andrea Doub, M.S. and Amy Bauguess, M.S. for c3bc.
Instructional Design by Courtney A. Harrington, Ph.D., Helen Dollyhite, M.A. and Caroline Smith, M.A. for c3bc.
Media by Brittany Clark, Jose DeCastro, Jordan Campbell and Antonio Davis for c3bc.
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