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.

Theoretical predictions of the effects of force transmission by desmin on intersarcomere dynamics. Meyer GA, Kiiss B, Ward SR, Morgan DL, Kellermayer MSZ, Lieber RL.
A model of the lower limb for analysis of human movement. Arnold EM, Ward SR, Lieber RL, Delp SL.
Nesprin 1 is critical for nuclear positioning and anchorage. Zhang J, Felder A, Liu Y, Guo LT, Lange S, Dalton ND, Gu Y, Peterson KL, Mizisin AP, Shelton GD, Lieber RL, Chen J.
Nebulin plays a direct role in promoting strong actin-myosin interactions. Bang ML, Caremani M, Brunello E, Littlefield R, Lieber RL, Chen J, Lombardi V, Linari M.
Novel transcriptional profile in wrist muscles from cerebral palsy patients. Smith LR, Pontén E, Hedström Y, Ward SR, Chambers HG, Subramaniam S, Lieber RL.
Obscurin determines the architecture of the longitudinal sarcoplasmic reticulum. Lange S, Ouyang K, Meyer G, Cui L, Cheng H, Lieber RL, Chen J.
Correlation between isometric force and intramuscular pressure in rabbit tibialis anterior muscle with an intact anterior compartment. Winters TM, Sepulveda GS, Cottler PS, Kaufman KR, Lieber RL, Ward SR.
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.

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