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Mechanical analysis of muscle ultrastructure variation – novel modelling of muscle sarcomere branching, The
Crownhart, Grant C.
Crownhart, Grant C.
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2025-04
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Abstract
The understanding of striated muscle ultrastructure (the structure within the muscle cell or fiber) has long been that muscle sarcomeres are connected in series along the length of our myofibrils. With recent findings, through the use of electron microscopy, it has been found that sarcomeres are not only connected lengthwise from end-to-end but also are connected across the width of the myofibril. This widthwise connection of muscle sarcomeres is referred to as sarcomere branching and has variable frequency across the different striated muscle types and across different ages of muscle. While this phenomenon has begun to be explored in a biological sense, there are no previous mechanical models demonstrating what effect sarcomere branching has on muscle force and mechanical properties. An exploration of existing literature highlights the present understanding of muscle ultrastructure, as well as identifying the need to characterize mechanical properties with these new findings. This research project is designed to demonstrate that through different computational modelling approaches, it is possible to begin creating a novel muscle model that accounts for sarcomeres both in parallel and in series. Through the exploration of applying different simulation techniques to muscle ultrastructure modelling, we are testing the hypothesis that muscle force properties can be predicted that may contrast with our previous understanding of how series sarcomeres function in myofibrils. Additionally, we will compare the efficacy of different modelling approaches and investigate variation in branch frequency across muscle types.
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