Alexandra Hebert

BIOL 4161

Section 002

30 October 2019

Hypothesis

With the addition of caffeine, cardiac muscle contractile activity of the Xenopus laevis

will exhibit increased strength and decreased duration.

Rationale

Caffeine increases the sarcoplasmic calcium concentration, which causes an increase in

the strength of the twitches that lead to contraction (Chapman and Miller 1974). By increasing

the strength of the contraction, the duration will decrease because they are inversely proportional

factors. Increased contractile activity is directly correlated to the removal of inhibition from the

troponin/tropomyosin complex by increasing the cytoplasmic calcium concentration (Boswell

Fall 2019).
 Literature Cited

Boswell LC (Fall 2019) Vertebrate Physiology Student Lab Manual. Baton Rouge, LA:

Louisiana State University.

Chapman RA, and Miller DJ (1974) The Effects of Caffeine on the Contraction of the Frog

Heart. The Journal of Physiology 242(3): 589–613.