Properties of Cardiac Muscles (NOTES)

Properties of Cardiac Muscles
Dr. Tooba Noor
Learning Outcomes:
By the end of lecture, the student should be able to;
• Define the functional syncytium of cardiac muscles

• Define the terms: Automaticity, Rhyhtmicity, Conductivity and Contractility
• Outline the normal pathway of cardiac impulse
• Describe the excitation-contraction coupling in cardiac muscles and compare it to
excitation-contraction coupling in skeletal muscles
• Discuss summation, treppe and refractory period of cardiac muscle fibers.
Anatomical location of heart:
• Heart is a muscular organ that pumps blood throughout the circulatory system
• It is situated in between two lungs in the mediastinum
• It is made up of four chambers, two atria and two ventricles
• Force of contraction of heart depends upon the muscles
• Three layers
• Epicardium
• Outside layer
• This layer is the parietal pericardium
• Connective tissue layer
• Myocardium
• Middle layer
• Mostly cardiac muscle
• Endocardium
• Inner layer
• Endothelium
The Cardiac muscle fibers:

Myocardium has three types of muscle fibers:
• Muscle fibers which form contractile unit of heart (99%)
• Muscle fibers which form pacemaker
• Muscle fibers which form conductive system
Muscle fibers which form the Contractile unit

• Striated and resemble the skeletal muscle fiber.
• bound by sarcolemma and centrally placed nucleus.
• Myofibrils are embedded in the sarcoplasm.
• contain all the contractile proteins, i.e. actin, myosin, troponin and tropomyosin.
• Sarcotubular system in cardiac muscle is slightly different to that of skeletal muscle.
Comparison of sarcotubular system in skeletal and cardiac muscles
Characteristics Cardiac Muscles Skeletal Muscles
Location of T-tubules At Z-line At A-I junction
Diameter of T-tubules More (5 times) Less
L-tubules Narrow tubular cistern Large dilated cistern
Association of T-tubules (Tubule and cistern) Diad (1 tubule and 1 cistern) Triad (1 tubule and 2 cistern)
Sarcomeric organization Less regular More regular
Function syncytium:
• Adjacent cardiac cells are joined end to end by specialized structures known as intercalated
discs, there are two types of junctions ;
• Desmosomes
• Gap junctions
that allow action potential to spread from one cell to adjacent cells
• Heart function as syncytium when one cardiac cell undergoes an action potential, the electrical
impulse spreads to all other cells that are joined by gap junctions so they become excited and
contract as a single functional syncytium.
Atrial syncytium and ventricular
Orientation of Cardiac Muscle Fibers:
• The tissue that comprises the myocardium, as well as the adjacent tissues of the endocardium
and pericardium are continuous which means that the cardiac muscle is one single tissue that
wraps around itself to form the heart.
• The double spiral formation of the myocardial tissue allows a 60% increase in ejection fraction
with a fiber shortening of 15%
Muscle fibers which form the pace maker of heart:
• Some of the muscle fibres of heart are modified into a specialized structure known as
pacemaker.
• These muscle fibres forming the pacemaker have less striation.
• They are named pacemaker cells or P cells.
• Sino-atrial (SA) node forms the pacemaker in human heart.
Muscle fibers which form the conducting system of heart

• Conductive system of the heart is formed by modified cardiac muscle fibres.
• Impulses from SA node are transmitted to the atria directly.
• However, the impulses are transmitted to ventricles through various components of conducting
system
Properties of Cardiac muscles
Electrical Properties:
• Excitability
• Auto rhythimicity
• Conductivity (Dromotropic effect)
Mechanical Properties:
• Contractility (Ionotropic effect)
• Refractory Period
• Staircase effect (Treppe)
Excitability
• The ability of cardiac muscle to respond to a stimulus of adequate strength and duration by
generating an AP
• AP initiated by SA node travels along conductive pathway excites atrial and ventricular muscle
fibres.
Resting Membrane Potential

• Single cardiac muscle fiber : – 85 to – 95 mV
• Sino atrial (SA) node : – 55 to – 60 mV
• Purkinje fibers : – 90 to – 100 mV.
Electrical potential in muscle cells
Action Potential
Action potential in cardiac muscle is different from that of other tissues such as skeletal muscle, smooth
muscle and nervous tissue.
Phases of action potential

Action potential in a single cardiac muscle fiber occurs in four phases:
i. Initial depolarization
ii. Initial repolarization
iii. A plateau or final depolarization
iv. Final repolarization.
Auto rhythmicity
• Rhythmicity is the ability of a tissue to produce its own impulses regularly. It is also called
autorhythmicity or self-excitation.
• Property of rhythmicity is present in all the tissues of heart (1%).
• Heart has a specialized excitatory structure, from which the discharge of impulses is rapid. This
specialized structure is called pacemaker (99%).
Pacemaker of Heart
• Sinoatrial (SA) node is modified cardiac muscle, situated in the superior part of lateral wall of
right atrium
• The fibers of this node do not have contractile elements.
• These fibers are continuous with fibers of atrial muscle, so that the impulses from the SA node
spread rapidly through atria.
• Atrioventricular (AV) node, atria and ventricle also can produce the impulses and function as
pacemakers. Still, SA node is called the pacemaker because the rate of production of impulse
(rhythmicity) is more in SA node than in other parts. It is about 70 to 80/minute.
Pacemaker Potential
• Autorhythmic cells do not have stable resting membrane potential (RMP)
• Natural leakiness to Na and Ca spontaneous and gradual depolarization
• Unstable resting membrane potential (= pacemaker potential)
• Gradual depolarization reaches threshold (-40 mv) spontaneous AP generation
Conductivity
• Property by which excitation is conducted through the cardiac tissue.
• The atrial and ventricular muscles have a relatively rapid rate of conduction of the cardiac action
potential (maximum in Purkinje fibers).
• The A-V bundle myofibrils have a slow rate of conduction because their sizes are considerably
smaller (minimum at AV node).
Criteria for the spread of excitation and efficient cardiac function

• Atrial excitation and contraction should be complete before onset of ventricular contraction-
ensures complete filling of the ventricles during diastole
• Excitation of cardiac muscle fibres should be coordinated, ensure each heart chamber contracts
as a unit accomplish efficient pumping-smooth uniform contraction essential to squeeze out
blood
• Pair of atria & pair of ventricles should be functionally coordinated - permits synchronized
pumping of blood into pulmonary & systemic circulation
Contractility
• Intrinsic ability of cardiac muscles to develop force of contraction
• Cardiac muscle contract in response to the electrical impulse generated by SA node
ALL or NONE law

• All-or-none law is applicable to whole cardiac muscle.
• It is because of syncytial arrangement of cardiac muscle.
• In the case of skeletal muscle, all-or-none law is applicable only to a single muscle fiber.
• Heart either does not contract at all or it contracts with full force.
Summation and stair-case phenomenon (Treppe)
Stair-case phenomenon
• When the ventricle of a quiescent heart of frog is stimulated, the force of contraction increases
gradually for the first few contractions and then it remains same.
• Gradual increase in the force of contraction is called staircase phenomenon.
• Staircase phenomenon occurs because of beneficial effect which facilitates the force of
successive contraction.
SUMMATION OF submiminal Stimuli

• When a stimulus with a subliminal strength is applied, few stimuli with same subliminal strength
are applied in succession, the heart shows response by contraction, due to the summation of
stimuli.
Refractory Period in Cardiac Muscle

• Cardiac muscle has a long refractory period compared to skeletal muscle.
• Absolute refractory period extends throughout the contraction period of cardiac muscle and its
duration is 0.27 sec.
• Relative refractory period extends during first half of relaxation period, which is about 0.26 sec.
• So, the total refractory period is 0.53 sec.
Significance of Long Refractory Period in Cardiac Muscle

Long refractory period in cardiac muscle has three advantages:
i. Summation of contractions does not occur
ii. Fatigue does not occur
iii. Tetanus does not occur.

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Properties of Cardiac Muscles

Dr. Tooba Noor

By the end of lecture, the student should be able to;

• Define the functional syncytium of cardiac muscles

Anatomical location of heart:

The Cardiac muscle fibers:

Muscle fibers which form the Contractile unit

Characteristics Cardiac Muscles Skeletal Muscles

Location of T-tubules At Z-line At A-I junction

Diameter of T-tubules More (5 times) Less

L-tubules Narrow tubular cistern Large dilated cistern

Sarcomeric organization Less regular More regular

Orientation of Cardiac Muscle Fibers:

Muscle fibers which form the pace maker of heart:

Muscle fibers which form the conducting system of heart

Resting Membrane Potential

Electrical potential in muscle cells

Phases of action potential

Criteria for the spread of excitation and efficient cardiac function

ALL or NONE law

Summation and stair-case phenomenon (Treppe)

SUMMATION OF submiminal Stimuli

Refractory Period in Cardiac Muscle

Significance of Long Refractory Period in Cardiac Muscle

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