Neuromuscular junction

vomiting. Since the stomach relies on a uniform muscle movement in order to digest food (peristalsis), introducing a toxin that disrupts normal muscle movement will cause the cramping and pain sensation in a person’s gastrointestinal tract. Although this toxin is interfering with neuromuscular signaling, all of the pain signaling pathways are still fully functional since they work with a different set of neurotransmitters and pathways. Inhibition of the neuromuscular junction does not always negatively affect an organism. Some drugs used today purposely inhibit neuromuscular junction functions. The drug class that works as an acetylcholine antagonist is called an anticholinergic. This means that it blocks the acetylcholine receptors in the…

The neuromuscular junctions are in all humans and control skeletal muscles and smooth muscles. Skeletal muscles are attached and anchored to the bones, so when they are signaled to constrict, they work similar to a levy system and cause the human body to move (Martyn et. al, 1993). The smooth muscles, however, are not involved with bodily movement; smooth muscles are involved with involuntary function. Both muscle groups are equally important and both require the neuromuscular junction in order…

1. Nerve conduction tests of the ulnar, tibial, and peroneal nerves involves testing how well and quickly a nerve can send electrical signals to begin contraction of skeletal muscles. The first step in muscle contraction is excitation of a skeletal muscle fiber by a nerve signal. The nerve signal must be sent to the neuromuscular junction to open the voltage-gated calcium channels. Just like in a muscle fiber, the neuron must reach threshold potential before the action potentials can be…

Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (The ALS Association, 2015). ALS is more commonly referred to as Lou Gehrig’s disease after Lou Gehrig, a great American baseball player whose career unfortunately ended abruptly due to this incurable degenerative disease. ALS is the deterioration of motor neurons in the brain and spinal cord that leads to muscle weakness. This significant decrease in muscle strength eventually becomes paralysis, and the majority of those with this awful disease die from respiratory…

no linkage to the sex chromosomes (Sack GH Jr, Cork LC, Morris JM, Griffin JW, & Price DL, 1984). Physiological Processes Hereditary canine spinal muscular atrophy is a condition that is inherited that affects the nervous system of the diseased canine. Studies have shown that the weakness of the skeletal muscles is caused by the atrophy of these muscle fibre in a proximal to distal gradient, type I muscle fibre is linked to the early neurogenic degeneration in the homozygous individuals…

Figure 1. An EMG Tracing of Triceps and Biceps Muscles Co-activation. EMG signal produces an electrical activity of the muscle fibers active at a moment time. The electrical activity is measured in millivolts per milliseconds. The top channel shows the bicep EMG, while the bottom EMG correlates to the triceps contraction traces. Shown on the top graph, there are two periods of bicep activation, each last approximately 1.5ms. When the biceps are activated, it produces increasing amplitude peaks,…

Introduction: Temperature can affect the rate at which an action potential is generated to excite an action potential within a given skeletal muscle. Maximum contraction is the ability of the muscle to recruit and produce its greatest force during a contraction, and we can observe these effects by using a grip force transducer, which records the functional grip force of the hand. Therefore, the purpose of this lab was to discern how varying temperatures affect maximum contraction. I…

The process that is used by nurses and clinicians to consider a patient situation, collect data, process this data, make goals and implement interventions, evaluate outcomes and then finally, reflect on the learning outcomes from this process, is known as clinical reasoning (Hoffman, 2007). Clinical reasoning cycle is the tool that is used for the process of clinical reasoning. This paper will discuss management of Motor neurone disease using the clinical reasoning cycle as a framework. However,…

Myasthenia gravis is a chronic autoimmune disease that targets the neuromuscular junction resulting in impaired impulse transmission and skeletal muscle weakness. The muscular weakness may exacerbate during periods of activity while improving after periods of rest, occurring with various severities. Muscles that control the eyes, eyelids, facial expression, swallowing, and talking can also be affected. Symptoms are presented as drooping of the eyelids, called ptosis, blurred or double vision,…

Myasthenia Gravis is considered an “autoimmune neuromuscular disease” that is categorized by the different amounts of weakness of the skeletal muscles in the body. The cause of Myasthenia Gravis is a flaw in the transmission of the nerve impulses to the muscles in the body. When normal communication between nerves and muscles are distributed at the neuromuscular junction, Myasthenia Gravis occurs. In normal humans, when an impulse travels down a nerve, the nerve then releases a neurotransmitter…