Looking at structure of muscle and what’s relevant

 Keep in mind that none of skeletal muscles fibers (which is cell) actually physically touch
each other. 
 There is connective tissue around each fascicle (bundle of muscle fibers) and there is
connective tissue that separate each individual cell. 
 Skeletal muscle is biggest cells in body and can reach up to 20cm in length. Cylindrical.
Up to 100micrometers in diameter. 
o 100micrometers is the minimal size you can see with naked eye. Can see single
skeletal muscle fiber
 Ex. going to meat department and tease meat apart when cooking, you
can pull individual muscle fiber out of that meat. 
 See a lot of connective tissue around certain muscles and can see
connective tissue around the muscle separating the fascicles and
separating the muscle fibers. 

 Why is it important that muscle fibers not touch each other when they are laying
side by side? 
o That’s b/c muscle fibers generate their contractions as a result of their action
potential.
 AP run down membrane. Don’t want this AP touching this muscle fiber if
you don’t want this muscle to contract.
 So want ot have layer of connective tissue between them. 

Motor unit - # of muscle fibers controlled by one neuron.

 One motor neuron that integrates skeletal muscle fiber is ALWAYS A SOMATIC
MOTOR NEURON.
o Somatic motor neuron controls skeletal muscle
o Autonomic division controls the other types (cardiac + smooth)
 Visceral motor controls cardiac and smooth.

When focusing on skeletal muscle:

 Connective muscle separating fascicles. 
 BV and nerves are in muscle.

 When looking at muscle fiber

 o Up to 20cm but barely visible to naked eye..
 Have a # of structures associated w/it.
 Membrane is called a sarcolemma.
o Sarco = flesh 
 T tubules invaginating in that and inside of it cytosol is sarcoplasm.

 The sarcolemma b/c of thickness of the cell. Compared to neuron’s axon…

 Know difference between thickness of muscle fiber and skeletal muscle fiber and
an axon
o B/c muscle fiber is so thick, in order to generate an AP and make sure it gets to
the center of the cell, we have things called T Tubules.
 T tubules - invaginations of the plasma membrane or sarcolemma. 
 Run transversely that’s why they are called T tubules or
invaginations or the sarcolemma. 
 Why do we need T tubule? (mechanistic and teleological
explanation)
 Mechanics - As AP runs along the sarcolemma, it moves down the
T tubule and back up T tubule around this way and that way you
get the entire cell exposed to the sodium and potassium influx
and efflux (in other words the depolarization and repolarization
goes to the center of the cell). 
 So functionally, they bring AP into deep parts of the cell. 
 Also b/c the cells are so large and the way they develop
embryonically we see multiple nuclei.
 Might see maybe around 100 nuclei per skeletal muscle
fiber. They are multi nucleated. 
 You won’t see this with cardiac or smooth muscle
cells.