Muscle Physiology - General Overview

Workshop on Multi-Scale Muscle Mechanics

Muscle Physiology — General Overview

The muscle physiology laboratory is dedicated to the education and training of students via scientific research.
Our scientific goal is to understand the design and plasticity of the neuromuscular system.

The UCSD muscle physiology laboratory, located in the Veterans Administration Medical Center, was dedicated on September 16, 1986. Currently, the laboratory is supported by grants from the National Institutes of Health, the Veterans Administration, and private corporations.

The laboratory consists of physiologists, hand surgeons, residents, graduate students, and undergraduates. We encourage collaboration with faculty and scholars from other Universities.

To discover the underlying design principles of the neuromuscular physiology system.
To describe and understand the adaptive ability of the neuromuscular system.
To effectively communicate these findings to the scientific and medical communities.
To teach the scientific method to high school, undergraduate, graduate, medical and post-doctoral students.
To develop student's critical thinking ability.
To provide career guidance at many levels via exposure, discussion and debate.

All of our studies fall into one of two general categories:

Currently, the objectives of the laboratory are:

To understand the relationship between sarcomere length and joint angle in amphibian and mammalian systems.
To understand the architectural design of human arm muscles commonly used in surgical tendon transfer procedures.
To develop analytic and graphical models of muscles, tendons, and the joints on which they act.
To identify the factors which affect strength recovery in humans following surgical tendon transfer.
To identify the cellular events associated with muscle adaptation to surgical manipulation.
To understand the physiological relevance of the various myosin isoforms.

An index of a few abstracts and papers from this year formatted for presentation on the WWW. A more comprehensive list can be found in our Lab Bibliography.

Passive mechanical properties of the lumbar multifidus muscle support its role as a stabilizer. Ward SR, Tomiya A, Regev GJ, Thacker BE, Benzl RC, Kim CW, Lieber RL.
Reduced thin filament length in nebulin-knockout skeletal muscle alters isometric contractile properties. Gokhin DS, Bang ML, Zhang J, Chen J, Lieber RL
Are current measurements of lower extremity muscle architecture accurate? Ward SR, Eng CM, Smallwood LH, Lieber RL.
Botulinum toxin affects muscle function one year after a single injection. V.B. Minamoto, J.B. Hulst, M.J. Lim, K.P. Suzuki, S.N. Bremner, S.R. Ward, and R.L. Lieber.
Intramuscular lipid accumulation and dramatic force decline after only two Botulinum toxin injections. V.B. Minamoto, K.P. Suzuki, S.N. Bremner, R.L. Lieber, and S.R. Ward.
Unexpected mitogen activated protein kinase family activity after muscle injury. W.J. Peace, W.M. Campana, S.R. Ward, S.N. Bremner, and R.L. Lieber.
Intramuscular ketorolac tromethamine acutely impairs skeletal muscle function after eccentric injury. K.P. Suzuki, S.N. Bremner, V.B. Minamoto, R.L. Lieber, and S.R. Ward.
Tendon transfer surgery increases passive tension of muscle, muscle fiber bundles, and muscle fibers. M. Takahashi, S.R. Ward, J. Fridén, and R.L. Lieber.
Architectural analysis and intraoperative measurements demonstrate the unique design of the multifidus muscle for lumbar spine stability. Ward SR, Kim CW, Eng CM, Gottschalk LJ 4^th, Tomiya A, Garfin SR, Lieber RL.
A novel muscle biopsy clamp yields accurate in vivo sarcomere length values. Ward SR, Takahashi M, Winters TM, Kwan A, Lieber RL.
Muscle injury, vimentin expression, and nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs predispose to cryptic group A Streptococcal necrotizing infection. Hamilton SM, Bayer CR, Stevens DL, Lieber RL, Bryant AE.
Acceptable benefits and risks associated with surgically improving arm function in individuals living with cervical spinal cord injury. Anderson KD, Fridén J, Lieber RL.
Biology and mechanics of skeletal muscle: what hand surgeons need to know when tensioning a tendon transfer. Lieber RL.
Length tension relationship of the external anal sphincter muscle: Implications for the anal canal function. Rajasekaran MR, Jiang Y, Bhargava V, Littlefield R, Lee A, Lieber RL, Mittal RK.
Progressive myopathy and defects in the maintenance of myotendinous junctions in mice that lack talin 1 in skeletal muscle. Conti FJ, Felder A, Monkley S, Schwander M, Wood MR, Lieber R, Critchley D, Müller U.
Deletion of nebulin alters the length-tension properties of neonatal skeletal muscle. D.S. Gokhin, J. Zhang, J. Chen, and R.L. Lieber.
A mathematical model of force transmission by desmin in skeletal muscle. G.A. Meyer, M. Kellermeyer, S.R. Ward, and R.L. Lieber.
Muscle excursion scales with normalized fiber length in a rabbit model. T.M. Winter, M. Takahashi, R.L. Lieber, and S.R. Ward.
Scaling of muscle architecture and fiber types in the rat hindlimb. Eng CM, Smallwood LH, Rainiero MP, Lahey M, Ward SR, Lieber RL
Syncoilin is required for generating maximum isometric stress in skeletal muscle but dispensable for muscle cytoarchitecture. Zhang J, Bang ML, Gokhin DS, Lu Y, Cui L, Li X, Gu Y, Dalton N, Scimia MC, Peterson K, Lieber RL, Chen J.
Quantitative analysis of neonatal skeletal muscle functional improvement in the mouse. Gokhin DS, Ward SR, Bremner SN, Lieber RL.
Differential muscle and tendon adaptation after tendon transfer surgery. M. Takahashi, S.R. Ward, and R.L. Lieber.
Muscle architecture determines active and passive tension-generating impairments during surgical release. M.J. Lim, M. Takahashi, J. Fridén, R.L. Lieber and S.R. Ward.
Differential effect of dose and volume on muscle structure and function after botulinum toxin injection. J.B. Hulst, V.B. Minamoto, M.J. Lim, S.R. Ward and R.L. Lieber.
Decreased elastic modulus with muscle fiber atrophy in response to botulinum toxin injection. B.E. Thacker, A. Tomiya, J.B. Hulst, S.N. Bremner, R.L. Lieber and S.R. Ward.
Increased serial sarcomere number does not result in increased muscle excursion after tendon transfer surgery. M. Takahashi, S.R. Ward, and R.L. Lieber.
Microarchitecture studies of the human multifidus muscle reveal its unique design as a major dynamic stabilizer of the lumbar spine. C.W. Kim, S.R. Ward, A. Tomiya, G. Regev, M. Dhawan, L. Gottschalk, S.R. Garfin and R.L. Lieber.
Scapulothoracic and glenohumeral muscle architecture in middle-aged individuals. G.G. Altobelli, C.M. Eng, A.B. Taylor, D. Gokhin, R.L. Lieber and S.R. Ward.
Glenohumeral muscle architecture differs in middle-aged and elderly individuals. G.G. Altobelli, C.M. Eng, A.B. Taylor, D. Gokhin, R.L. Lieber and S.R. Ward.

The skeletal muscle physiology laboratory is supported by the Veterans Administration, the National Institutes of Health, NASA and Preferred Medical Products.