The influence of stimulation frequency and ankle joint angle on the moment exerted by human dorsiflexor muscles.

The purpose of this study was to investigate the force-frequency relationships and the post-tetanic twitch potentiation as a function of joint angle (i.e. muscle length) in human skeletal muscles under isometric conditions. The dorsiflexor muscles of healthy subjects were stimulated at different ankle joint angles by means of constant frequency bursts at seven submaximal frequencies (50, 33, 25, 20, 16, 12, 8 Hz) with a duration of two seconds. Particular attention has been focused on the stability of recruitment in the range of joint angles examined. The results show that moment-frequency curves of human dorsiflexors change as a function of ankle angle: especially for the lower stimulation frequency range (8, 12, 16, 20 Hz), the normalized moment increases from dorsiflexion to plantar flexion (i.e. with increasing muscle length) resulting in a leftward shift of the normalized moment-frequency curves. Post-tetanic twitch potentiation is shown to be ankle joint dependent as well.     

药用植物内生放线菌的分离和生物学特性

[目的]探索药用植物内生环境可培养放线菌的分离、培养方法,总结药用植物内生放线菌的生物学特性,探讨其物种多样性,挖掘新的微生物资源.[方法]采用10种分离培养基对37个新鲜的药用植物样品进行内生放线菌的分离;通过比较,选择适合植物内生放线菌生长的培养条件;根据菌落形态和细胞特征观察结果,选择其中174株菌测定16S rRNA基因序列,分析药用植物内生放线菌的多样性;应用Biolog GENⅢ微孔培养、API 50CH以及API ZYM试剂条测试27株代表菌株的生理生化特性.[结果]分离得到940株植物内生菌,分属于47个属,30个科,其中放线菌600余株,分属于34个属,共发现潜在的新分类单元有7个;本研究中药用植物内生放线菌的培养条件是:PYG培养基、pH7.2、28℃- 32℃;菌株间的生物学特性的差异与菌株系统进化关系呈正相关关系;不同环境植物的内生菌菌株的生物学特性差异较大,相同环境的不同植物内生菌的生物学特性差异较小.[结论]药用植物内生放线菌物种丰富多样;药用植物内生放线菌在唯一碳源利用、发酵碳源产酸及酶学活性等生理生化特性方面没有表现出和宿主植物的直接相关性,而是呈现出和宿主植物的地理分布有一定的相关性.     

A three-dimensional muscle model: a quantified relation between form and function of skeletal muscles

A three-dimensional muscle model with complex geometry is described and tested against experimental data. Using this model, several muscles were constructed. These muscles have equal optimum length but differ in architecture. The force exerted by the constructed muscles, in relation to their actual length and velocity of shortening, is discussed. Generally speaking, the constructed muscles with considerable pennation have great fiber angles, a great physiological cross section, a narrow active and steep passive length-force relation, and a low maximal velocity of shortening. The maximal power (force times velocity) delivered by the constructed muscles is shown to be almost independent of the architecture of the muscles. The steepness of the passive length-force relation is determined mainly by the shortest fibers within the group of constructed muscles, whereas maximal velocity of shortening and the width of the active length-force relation are determined mainly by the longest fibers. The validity of the three-dimensional muscle model with respect to some morphological and functional characteristics is tested. Length-force relations of constructed muscles are compared with the actual length-force relations of mm. gastrocnemii mediales and mm. semimembranosi of male Wistar rats. Moreover, actual fiber angle, fiber length, and muscle thickness of three mm. gastrocnemii mediales are compared with values found for constructed muscles. It is concluded that the three-dimensional muscle model closely approximates the actual muscle form and function.     

Changes in geometry of activily shortening unipennate rat gastrocnemius muscle

Muscle geometry of the unipennate medial gastrocnemius (GM) muscle of the rat was examined with photographic techniques during isometric contractions at different muscle lengths. It was found that the length of fibers in different regions of GM differs significantly, and proximal aponeurosis length varies significantly from distal aponeurosis length; the angle of the aponeurosis with the muscular action differs significantly among regions at short muscle lengths (full contraction). These data support the idea that the unipennate GM cannot be represented by a parallelogram in a two-dimensional analysis. As the muscle shortens, the area of the mid-longitudinal plane of the GM decreases by 24%, a decrease that may be explained by assuming fiber diameter to increase in all directions. The angle between fiber and aponeurosis is determined by more than fiber length. Hence, such important assumptions as a parallelogram with constant area and fiber angle γ changes determined by fiber length changes, freqently used in the theoretical analysis of the morphological mechanism of unipennate muscle contraction, do not hold for the unipennate GM of the rat. Length of the sarcomere within the mid-longitudinal plane of GM varies from 1.92 to 2.14 μm among the different muscle regions at muscle optimum length (length at which force production is highest), whereas shortening to 6 mm less than optimum length produces a range of sarcomere lengths from 0.89 to 1.52 μm. These data suggest that fibers located in different regions of the GM reach their optimum and slack lengths at various muscle lengths. © 1993 Wiley-Liss, Inc.     

Functional morphology of the M. gastrocnemius medialis of the rat during growth

Length-force relations, both active and passive, and twitch contraction characteristics were quantified for left medial gastrocnemius muscles of four young, four adult, and four old male Wistar rats. Muscle and bundle optimum length and muscle weight were also determined and subsequently used for calculation of a number of morphological characteristics of the muscles. Fiber optimum length was derived from muscle bundle optimum length. Generally, physiological characteristics remained constant during growth. There was no change either in active tension at muscle optimum length or in active working range relative to fiber optimum length, relative passive fiber stiffness, active force relative to passive force at optimum length, twitch contraction time and twitch half relaxation time at optimum length. A number of morphological changes, however, did take place in the medial gastrocnemius muscle during growth. Fiber optimum length increased but only by about 2 mm from youth to old age, whereas muscle optimum length increased by approximately 14 mm, presumably owing to extensive hypertrophy of the muscle fibers during growth. The priority for force of the medial gastrocnemius muscle (defined as the quotient of physiological cross-sectional area of a muscle and the cubed root of its volume, a measure independent of architecture and dimensions of muscles) increased during growth. This increase indicates that during growth the muscle shifts relatively more towards force generation than towards excursion generation. These findings are discussed in view of existing scaling theories.     

A simulation of rat edl force output based on intrinsic muscle properties

Force-velocity and force-length relations were obtained for the edl of four Wistar rats in order to characterise the contractile properties (CE) of these muscle-tendon complexes. Compliances of the undamped part of the series components (SE) were measured in quick length decreases. Force-extension relations of SEs were obtained by integration of compliance to force. A muscle model consisting of CE, SE and a visco-elastic element was used to simulate the force output of the muscle tendon complex in response to a changing muscle length lOI as input. This simulated force was compared with the experimental force of the same muscle measured in response to the same lOI as input. Tetanic contractions were used in all experiments. The results show that this muscle model can predict the experimental force within a mean maximal error not larger than approximately 14% of the force amplitude. However the comparison of simulated force with experimental force and a few additional experiments show that the muscles do not have a unique instantaneous force-velocity characteristic. As shown by several other studies, force seems to be influenced by many other variables (time, history etc.) than CE length and velocity.     

Influence of muscle dimensions on economy of isometric exercise in rat medial gastrocnemius muscles in situ

The effect of muscle dimensions on economy (force-time integral divided by the amount of energy utilized) was investigated in male rats (body mass range 95-490 g), anaesthetized with pentobarbital. The medial gastrocnemius muscle in situ performed 6 maximal isometric contractions of 350 ms duration (1.s-1) at twitch optimum length at 35 degrees C. The areas under the 6 time-force curves were added to obtain force-time integral of the experiment. Differences of concentrations of ATP, phosphocreatine and lactate between experimental and contralateral (resting) muscles were used to calculate high-energy phosphate consumption due to stimulation. Muscle mass and cross-sectional area increased (approximately +400% and +300%, respectively) over the rat body mass range studied. Muscle length and length of the most distal fibre bundle increased by approximately 17 mm and 4 mm, respectively. Force-time integral (N.s) increased proportional to cross-sectional area whereas high-energy phosphate consumption (mumoles) increased proportional to muscle mass. The relative fraction of the total energy consumption utilized for force-independent processes was independent of rat body mass. The economy of the actomyosin system was unaffected during growth, whereas economy of the whole muscle decreased during growth by approximately 30% (p less than 0.001). The effect of muscle dimensions on economy is discussed with respect to human endurance capacity measured by voluntary isometric contractions.     

Mouvances des familles et réponses aux besoins des enfants II. L’autorité, la construction de l’identité et la sexualité

There are a lot of different models of family structures apart from the traditional nuclear family which is why they have been grouped together under the generic termrestructured families. Do they satisfactorily meet — to paraphrase Winnicott — the psychic needs of children that live inside them? The answer cannot be simplyyes or no as it is obviously impossible to study every individual case Like all human institutions, these families have to deal with specific failures and successes, which may be momentary during a crisis or a highly productive period while others may be more structural. In the second of these two articles, dedicated to this subject (Part 1 inPSN, vol. 1, 2003, n^o5, pp. 31–37), the issue of authority, the elaboration of the feeling of identity and some questions regarding sexuality will be discussed.