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Title: How would you describe skeletal muscle contraction without the nervous system? Post by: colleen on Mar 10, 2012 How would you describe skeletal muscle contraction without the nervous system?
Title: Re: How would you describe skeletal muscle contraction without the nervous system? Post by: lewis on Mar 10, 2012 The purpose of this question is to get the students to think about what makes skeletal muscle contract and relate that to the importance of the nervous system. There are four ways to stimulate the skeletal muscles to contract: electrical, chemical, mechanical, and thermal stimuli. With no nervous system, the only practical way to stimulate the muscles would be chemical, which is the way that the nervous system stimulates the muscles. If acetylcholine were released into the muscle and if there were receptors on the sarcolemma for acetylcholine, then the muscle would contract. Of course the whole muscle would tend to contract, along with other muscles. Another problem would be how to get the acetylcholine to the muscles. This may be possible through the blood vessels but would result in a problem of distribution to specific muscles. Also, where would the acetylcholine come from and what would signal the release of the acetylcholine? The students should conclude that it may be possible to get skeletal muscles to contract using another system, but it is difficult to come up with a better way than using the nervous system.
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