#neuromuscular junctions

[bpod-bpod]

LARGE Links

Every muscle fibre in your body is packed with muscle cells firmly attached to a surrounding sheet called the basement membrane. This attachment requires a protein on muscle cells called dystroglycan and the help of the enzyme LARGE1. LARGE1 makes another protein, matriglycan, directly onto dystroglycan's outward-pointing end, forming a bridge to the basement membrane. Interfere with dystroglycan and the disease muscular dystrophy occurs. Researchers dig deeper using mice genetically engineered with dystroglycan lacking its outward-pointing stretch. Measuring specific protein levels, they find now LARGE1 can only make stunted forms of matriglycan in muscle cells. Dystroglycan could nonetheless bind the basement membrane but the muscle couldn't work properly. Fluorescent microscopy revealed disrupted neuromuscular junctions (pictured, bottom) – connections between a muscle (green) and its nerves (red) – compared with normal mice (top). This helps unpick dystroglycan’s role in muscle diseases.

Written by Lux Fatimathas

Image from work by Hidehiko Okuma and colleagues

Wellstone Muscular Dystrophy Specialized Research Center, Department of Molecular Physiology and Biophysics and Department of Neurology, Roy J. and Lucille A. Carver College of Medicine, The University of Iowa, Iowa City, IA, USA

Image originally published with a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)

Published in eLife, February 2023

You can also follow BPoD on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook

[sciencesolutions]

[aabadmus]

Physiology MCQ - Neuromuscular Junction

Physiology MCQ – Neuromuscular Junction

Welcome to Nerve Muscle Physiology MCQ 3. Here we have a set of questions to prepare you and assess your speed, accuracy and knowledge. Make yourself comfortable and have fun answering the questions. Solutions are given at the end of the test. The test contains 25 Questions and Focuses on Neuromuscular Junction This 25 Questions test shall last for 10 minutes. Click Start Quiz to begin. START…

[birdyverdie]

Hiya! Just wanted to drop by and say hi and thanks for reaching out and saying hi on my silly little post about talking about DD :,)

I love seeing all the Paracelsus enjoyers, she is the best shrimp posture doctor. <3 Do you have any personal favourite/niche headcanons for her?

Also good luck with your exams! Are you studying medicine/biomedicine? (I did a few classes a few years ago, and kudos -- it's so much material, especially the anatomy classes.) Do you have a favourite class? :o

Hi hi! :D! I put the personal stuff under a read more because by GOD can I ramble </3

Of course! I always like saying hi to people I see in the Darkest Dungeon tag! I think your art is SO lovely too!! I adore the way you draw Dismas and Reynauld!! They're so shapely in your style <3 pair that up with a Bloodborne crossover?? you're spoiling us fans fr!!

I'm a Para enjoyer first and foremost because I relate with the thirst for random medical knowledge that Para has, and also her bird motif!! (She's bird-like in my heart and soul. And I'm a bird enjoyer <3)

I have a few stray headcanons for her, mostly everything is about her scope of practice because that's where my thought process tends to stray when I study. We know that she's named after the father of toxicology, so most of her study goes into figuring out external agents effects on the human body. Though, I like to imagine her to have side interest in hematology as well! Mixing blood with a bunch of other agents seems like something she would be interested at least. (Perhaps that's how she finds out about blood types...*cough* I've been thinking about writing a Paracelsus fic about this for literal months *cough*)

This is a personal thing of mine, but I refuse to believe that Paracelsus actually believed in Humorism. I mean, the first iteration of it was basically a glorified personality test, nay horoscopes! (Yes I know that knowledge was limited back then, but alas, I'd like to imagine her scope is more experimental than observational.)

So instead I headcanon her to--if not the progenitor of Germ Theory--then at least a constituent of it. I think she and Louis Pasteur would have really fun conversations about it.

Another stray headcanon I have is that she receives the equivalent of a newspaper subscription from historical medical practitioners/researchers. So her daily newspaper could be about Edward Jenner's vaccine studies or Ferdinand Cohn's endospores. I don't care that the two of them existed 100 years apart, if we can have a 7th century BC Roman Vestal and a 14th century Plague Doctor in the same room then I can have Edward Jenner and Andrew Wakefield ("vaccines cause autism" guy) duking it out in scientific papers that Paracelsus reads like a WWE match.

Thank you for the luck fellow science enjoyer! Are you also studying medicine :0!?

Thankfully, my exam period is finally over, so I'm taking it easy with recuperating with the post-exam burnout :P And I'm a health major with a nutrition minor, but with a program path towards perfusion! My far-future end goal is to become a surgeon, but due to life circumstances I'll have to settle for perfusion for the time being :P Which I don't mind at all! I think it's such an interesting field, and a hidden hero for many cardiac surgeries! I also really like learning about the circulatory system so I think it's a little perfect ehehe :D!

My favorite class is currently Anatomy & Physiology, I have a really good professor this year, but my god It's actually a lot more complex than I thought it was gonna be while walking in. I genuinely thought it was mostly memorizing like...the bones of the skeleton and perhaps the muscles or something like that. Nahhh it takes a lot of micrology concepts too ;; Which I don't mind! But some days I'm staring at some topics like the neuromuscular junction and wishing I never knew what acetylcholine was. Though some days I do wish to return to Medical Terminology, that class was what I imagined: simple.

Thank you so much for this ask!! It was lovely talking about it!!

[whumpbug]

hi bug i am here to trade questions!! i have a burning one about your boy archie:

what exactly are his powers? what sort of things can he do? what are the drawbacks to them, how do they hurt him back?

thank you :>

-@whump-kia

thank you SO much for asking this because i've been wanting an excuse to talk about this boy ( ���˘ω˘ ) like yours, i also wrote a LOT so i apologize in advance

okay so. i think i've said before that his enhancements are like if daredevil and captain's americas abilities combined but ill explain it in more detail for people who aren't totally sure about the specifics of that

the tl;dr is basically this: archie has enhanced strength and heightened senses. he's about 4 times as strong as the average male his age, and similarly as resilient. because of his enhanced strength, he can also run faster and jump higher (the boy has quads of steel). he can also see and hear much clearer and farther than your average human and can even hear heartbeats from a decent distance away!

under the cut is a lottt more detail and context for those who are interested!

so basically, i'm gonna start with some backstory.

archie's villain (hero) origin story:

archie grew up in the city and was never very. affluent.

he grew up with his mother because his father left when he was really young. he doesn't remember him well, but what he does remember is the effect his absence had on his mom. to put it briefly, he grew up around a lot of things that a child shouldn't have had to grow up around.

still, his mother did her absolute best to give him a good, safe childhood. unfortunately, there are things you just cant protect your child from.

when he was about 7, he was walking home from school and goofing around like a kid does, and he somehow got roped into a drug deal that was being made just a block from his apartment.

long story short, the guys were roughing him up (they were assholes.) and one of them was messing around and pretending to stick him with one of the syringes.

and then he actually did.

and it was agony.

poor, tiny archie was immediately overcome with the worst pain he'd ever experienced in his life to this day.

to avoid this section becoming a straight up 100k fic, ill just say that the recovery from the initial contact with the serum took archie weeks to recover from, and it many ways, he hasn't.

the boy is terrified of needles.

about the drug itself:

so you're gonna have to bear with me her because i am not a biochemist, and this might not make any sense.

so the drug, which i've dubbed VSD (Very Scary Drug) was originally made by a very shady crime syndicate, for underground fighting rings, kind of like a steroid but more permanent. the drug has 2 parts.

the first part of it works by acting on a specific DNA sequence, and spurring HGH (Human Growth Hormone) to amp up its production in the skeletal muscle cells, bone cells, and neuromuscular junctions (for better and faster reflexes)

the other part alters the somatosensory cortex, occipital lobe, and temporal lobe, and esentially causes them to be extremely active, to a point beyond human ability, but because of the first part of the drug, it's able to heal itself and create new cells

because VSD was designed to be permanent, it is very dangerous and not for everyone. the thing about it is that you have to be genetically compatible with it, or the entire thing could backfire or malfunction. only about 1 in every 100k people are even able to reap the effects of the drug. about 1 in every 100 even survive taking it at the dose archie recieved it.

if someone incompatible takes the drug, the effects are. dire. they can range from blindness, deafness, loss of sensation throughout the entire body, tumors, complete paralysis, and even the body just. not producing more cells. and then the vicitim would just deteriorate.

so yeah! not a fun time! and archie was incredibly lucky. the drug was obviously discontinued, and archie hasn't heard of anyone else who recieved the same effects that he did. there are only drugs that can do similar things now, but none are permant like archie's, and the abilities dont even begin to compare.

now what the hell can archie actually do?

well, let's first start with what he can't do.

the drug has no cognitive or behavioral effects, so archie is still the same old archie, only his body has changed.

the drug also has no effect on the immune system, both innate and adaptive. archie can get sick the same as any person, and has the same recovery time too!

now lets move on to the fun stuff!

like i said before, archie has about 4 times the strength as your average male his age. because of his muscle mass and bone density, he is also relatively resilient to injuries from "normal" people, but he's not like. invincible. if you smack that boy with a brick, its gonna hurt. he is sometimes unaware of his own strength and limits though, and throws himself to situations with the mindset of "this isnt even gonna scatch me" and is proven very wrong.

as for his senses, we'll start with vision

he can see about twice as far as your average person, and with clarity beyond even 20/20. he is also very privy to noticing small movements, even if theyre in his peripheral.

now hearing! he can hear much much quieter things than your average human. im not totally sure how to quantify this one, but basically he is hearing like.. everything. all the time. which we'll get into later. the way i gauge it is the fact than he can hear heartbeats, even when he'd just standing next to the person.

and lastly (and probably least interestingly) touch! he can feel sensations a lot more clearly than most. the sensation you would have on your fingertips is kind of what he feels all over, and it makes him have pretty bad sensory issues with certain things (me too archie, me too.)

how can we whump this boy?!

okay, now onto the drawbacks of these abilities!

you're probably thinking "bug. how are there even any drawbacks? these abilities seem sick asf! how do i get my hands on VSD?!"

and i'm here to tell you. NO no you do not want this. archie still suffers every day.

the first and most obvious one is the unimaginable sensory overload this boy feels every day. he hardly ever gets a quiet moment, and even when he does, he still can't tune out the sound of his own heartbeat thundering in his ears. it's hell. luckily, hes had 17 years to learn to cope, but he still has days where he curls into a ball in a dark room and sobs because everything is too bright and so so loud

also, the drug isn't painless. since the muscle mass isn't natural, prolonged use of his body (like in fights) cause horrific aches the days after. it feels like his body is trying to tear itself apart, which, it kind of is.

also, the headaches. god, the headaches. the human brain does not take kindly to being toyed with and doesn't archie know it. archie is sort just. in a perpetual headache. and he only really notices when that headache becomes a migraine. get this boy some ibuprofen, please.

another thing is increased appetite. because cells can't just synthesize out of nowhere, archie has to keep up with the rapid production. this boy can EAT. he is always hungry. always snacking.

lastly, the psychological aspect of the whole thing. growing up as a superhuman, where even playing thumb war could break your classmate's thumb, was hard. archie lived most of his childhood keeping to himself in fear of his own strength. as he got older, he learned to manage it a bit better, but he's still very anxious about it. he won't let himself near babies, cats, or small dogs.

and then, of course, there's the trauma. this manifests as a SEVERE needle phobia, as well as just a fear of doctors in general. its the reason why he and Simon's relationship just works. he doesn't see him as a doctor, he sees him as a friend who is always willing to take care of him when he needs it, and for that, he is forever grateful

end!

and that's pretty much it! please excuse my probably horrid typos and grammar errors, i kind of rushed this because i was excited, so i hope you like it kia! thank you so so much for the ask! ヾ(^ ^ゞ

[yandere-paramour]

Y'know, I think Atalanta just has that type of personality I would not be compatible with in general, like, we would be business rivals maybe because I'd always feel like I have to one-up her😭 that being said, she is kinda growing on me in the span of these few days because I can see a gentle and caring side in her from some of the things you've written and that's really cute. She loves in the way she knows best and that is an admirable trait, so she has my respect.

Ahhh, but Vivien brings light to my life, reading about him is so fun!! Really, just wanna walk in when he's at work, buy flowers right from the shop and then give them to him as a present. If it were up to me, he would be all pampered. I know Noelle is still sort of new but she also gives me the same vibe, I would totally treat her sweetly and I also think she would just be nice to talk to. I can imagine she'd be understanding, but then again, I guess all the yans would try to be for their darling anyway.

I'm glad that whatever I had to say was inspiring to you!! I'm also sorry because it wasn't a very eloquent message at all, but I'm happy you could extract what was of value from it. And I wanna say thank you for writing and sharing it with us here, because honestly you've built such a beautiful reprieve in your blog and I know it's a place I can always come to for a needed escape whenever.

Anyway, I think I'm rambling now, I actually just wanted to wish you happy birthday now that it's July 3rd (at my time of sending). Happy 22nd and I hope today and every other day coming is great for you. Take care of yourself and rest when you can. All the best to you always!!

Atalanta is always such a fun character for me to write because she is always trying to put on this front of being calm and cool and collected and for the most, she truly is like that, but she has these moments of vulnerability with her Darling that I like best because it shows her as being just Ata and not Atalanta Montclair. She truly is the product of her upbringing; she is somehow both her mother's daughter and her father's daughter at the same time. She loves her Darling in the only way she knows how. Even if it isn't perfect, I like to think I manage to convey the high esteem she holds you in. She holds her Darling in such regard, she just doesn't know how to properly protect and care for you.

Oh Vivien is my little guy, I love him so much. I'm glad you enjoy him. He is probably the least dangerous of my yanderes, at least towards Darling (remember, he is technically a serial killer). He has had such a hard life, I can't bring myself to write him in any angst because I just want him to be happy.

Noelle is new and I'm still fleshing her out as a person. She strikes me as someone who stays silent a lot, not because she's shy but just because she has nothing to say to you. But when she's with her sisters or with Ata, she's funny and charming. I think the thing that endears me most to her is her fear of losing what she has. She has clawed her way up from the depths of the hell that was her childhood and now that she has reached the top, she would sooner die than give up her lifestyle, and that includes her Darling. I think she's the most controlling yan (more on this later, random fan I got your ask and I'm working on it, I swear, I'm just balls deep in the neuromuscular junction rn) because of this fear of hers. I should write something to try and shake her to her very core and see what comes out.

Ah, your messages are so kind. I really do find comfort and happiness in kind messages like this. I always want to know what you guys think about the characters and kindness about my writing and my birthday is just the sugar on the cream. It is so easy with blogs like this to turn from a writer to just a content creator churning out as much work as possible to keep the followers happy, but it's messages like this that make me feel human again. Thank you. It means a lot to me to know that I have created a space where people can come to lose themselves in my stories.

And yes, haha, it was my silly lil birthday today. I spent most of it in school or driving but I watched King of the Hill and I studied so it was okay :)

[star-dust-shark]

tw? this one is weird cuz my friends are weird, not that freaky tho

hey there beautiful, are you a muscle? cuz we have all the power to get some action 😏😉

(its cuz action potential is what travels down the CNS and eventually reaches the neuromuscular junction where it travels down the T-tubules and causes muscles to contract by allowing calcium ion channels to open)

GYAT DAYUMMMMMM

Woah ur smart

[humancelltournament]

Human Cell Tournament Round 1

Propaganda!

Skeletal muscle cells are the individual contractile cells within a muscle, and are often termed as muscle fibers. A single muscle such as the biceps in a young adult male contains around 253,000 muscle fibers. Skeletal muscle fibers are multinucleated with the nuclei often referred to as myonuclei. Many nuclei are needed by the skeletal muscle cell for the large amounts of proteins and enzymes needed to be produced for the cell's normal functioning. A single muscle fiber can contain from hundreds to thousands of nuclei. A muscle fiber for example in the human biceps with a length of 10 cm can have as many as 3,000 nuclei. Unlike in a non-muscle cell where the nucleus is centrally positioned, the myonucleus is elongated and located close to the sarcolemma.

Acetylcholinesterase (ACHE) is the primary cholinesterase in the body. It is an enzyme that catalyzes the breakdown of acetylcholine and some other choline esters that function as neurotransmitters. It is found at mainly neuromuscular junctions and in chemical synapses of the cholinergic type, where its activity serves to terminate synaptic transmission. It belongs to the carboxylesterase family of enzymes. It is the primary target of inhibition by organophosphorus compounds such as nerve agents and pesticides.

[alfalfaaarya]

7 November 2023 // 20 days to finals

Today has been productive !

Studied :

Physiology:

REM sleep

Basal Ganglia ( components, connections , functions)

Neuromuscular Junction

Myasthenia Gravis

Properties of skeletal muscles

Anatomy :

Joints ( this was a loooot , I'm so happy I completed this )

Ciliary Ganglion

Pterygopalatine ganglion

Imma be sleeping now 😴

Tata

[badassbutterfly1987]

Madame Web (2024) mild spoilers

So I saw Madame Web and I think I liked it. If you enjoyed the Venom movies for their awkward fun, then you might have a good time. Script is definitely messy and there's notable moments of awkward dubbing (especially for the bad guy's lines).

I do have mixed feelings about its handling of disability. In the comics, Cassandra Webb is an older woman who uses a wheelchair and is blind; these are caused by myasthenia gravis (MG), a neuromuscular junction disease, a major symptom being skeletal muscle weakness. Movie Cassandra is a young healthy paramedic; it's revealed in a flashback that she was diagnosed with MG in utero (not possible in real life but anyway), her mother died of a gun shot wound while giving birth to her, and a special spider bite cured her as a newborn (also gave her pre-cog abilities but those didn't activate until an adult near-death experience). Cassandra does end the movie using a wheelchair and blind, but both are due to in-battle injuries.

On the one hand, I kinda get it. The writers wanted an active character running around and protecting these three scared teenagers. It's the lazier option but I wasn't exactly expecting high-quality disability rep from the same writers of Morbius.

But it does feel like a missed opportunity, because they could have chosen an interesting middle ground: have Cassandra start getting the early symptoms, getting a diagnosis, and struggling to come to terms with that. It could tie into her character in an interesting way. She's awkward around people but also pushes people away in fear they'll see her as a burden in a few years, which could also tie into her existing abandonment issues from being in foster care after her mother's death. As a paramedic, she's trying to do as much good as possible before her disability means adjusting to a new way of doing things. And since this disease causes muscle weakness especially after exertion, that could be shown after an action scene where she has to debate how much to trust these girls with her illness while she's trying to protect them, eventually finding a balance where they support each other. That way the movie would be doing something interesting with a disabled character instead of having it tagged onto the end scene.

These changes wouldn't fix the script (and I don't really trust Sony to do it well) but it would make for an interesting layer to Cassie's character. Maybe a fic writer will do something interesting with it.

[bpod-bpod]

Nerve Meets Muscle

Aligned muscle fibres surrounded by innervating motor neurons forming functional neuromuscular junctions grown from human pluripotent stem cells creates a model for studying neuromuscular disease and drug targeting

Read the published research article here

Image from work by Alessia Urzi and colleagues

Stem Cell Modeling of Development & Disease Group, Max Delbrück Center for Molecular Medicine in the Helmholtz Association (MDC), Berlin, Germany

Image originally published with a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)

Published in Nature Communications, December 2023

You can also follow BPoD on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook

[drpreetityagilecturers]

Want to understand how nerves and muscles work together? Download the Turning Brain Dr. Preeti Tyagi App for easy-to-follow lectures on nerve and muscle physiology. Get a clear understanding of neuromuscular junctions and boost your medical knowledge today!

Download The App Now!

[roetrolls]

JUST FINISHED AN APPOINTMENT WITH A NEUROLOGIST WHO HAS A GREAT TRACK RECORD WITH MG PATIENTS

SHE SAID THE DAMAGE DONE TO MY NEUROMUSCULAR JUNCTIONS CAN STILL BE REVERSED AND WITHIN TWO MONTHS OF TREATMENT I COULD SEE A MARKED IMPROVEMENT

SHE SAID THEY CAN GET MY OLD VOICE AND SMILE BACK

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

Success Treating Migraine -- How to Treat it

A client came in whom I've worked with a lot. Her spine has many twists and turns from multiple falls being an equestrian for 25 years. At this point, in her 60's she's experiencing a lack of energy and general difficulty putting on muscle. Migraines are part of the picture.

I've worked with her sub-occipital rotators before but they haven't stayed corrected. The migraines are less frequent but not gone. What else am I missing? Clients who present with complex problems are my favorite these days because they make me think and learn new things. Sometimes I have to relearn something....

A major area of instability in many people's spine is at the base of the rib cage where the lumbar spine is vulnerable to torque injuries. A left torque will create weakness down the medial side of the opposite leg and up into the back of the opposite shoulder and also inhibit the ability to twist the spine to the right. Often this will be accompanied by an inability to get the 'push reflex' to work through the left leg. All these events are predictable and repeatable. If you don't correct that fundamental torque, the problems will recur.

The work the client does at home is crucial.

I corrected the sub-occipitals then had my client fire off the left lumbar preferred rotation. I then rechecked the neck and the correction I had done minutes ago was gone. I released the left lumbar at the T12, L1 junction, training the spine to be able to rotate right without using the left back extensors to push it. (Yes, your back extensors will get active in rotation if your rotators don't work.) After releasing the left QL and Extensors at T12/L1 I retested the sub-occipitals and they were testing strong. I ran the same tests twice through to double check. Yup, doing fine.

I saw that client again today. I ask how the Migraines were since our new discovery. SHE HADN'T HAD A MIGRAINE IN FOUR MONTHS. Miracle! When I retested the left lumbar rotations to the sub-occipitals no errors occurred in the firing patterns. No muscles 'switched off', a term used for muscles that fail to respond reliably when muscle tested.

For those of you who know muscle testing, you can test the preferred lumbar rotation against the cervical rotations and release the lumbar to correct the cervical inhibitions. Pictured here are 2 of the major players in lumbar rotation: QL and Serratus Posterior Inferior SPI, (a very important player which opposes the full expansion of the back of the diaphragm. Frequently locked short following past falls which ‘knocked your breath out’). These short tight muscles end up inhibiting the sub-occipitals on the opposite side.

A major area of instability in many people's spine is at the base of the rib cage where the lumbar spine is vulnerable to torque injuries. A left torque will create weakness down the medial side of the opposite leg and up into the back of the opposite shoulder and also inhibit the ability to twist the spine to the right. Often this will be accompanied by an inability to get the 'push reflex' to work through the left leg. All these events are predictable and repeatable. If you don't correct that fundamental torque, the problems will recur. If you don't address the secondary relationship between suboccipital torque and Thoraco/Lumbar torque, the problems will recur.

What is the role of Serratus Posterior Inferior? I looked up an image of it. It's a lot more superficial than I thought.

This lovely strong muscle the Serratus Posterior Inferior ties our lowest ribs to our spine. When you take a blow to your back and get the ‘wind knocked out of you’ this muscle contracts and frequently doesn’t let go. SPI is superficial compared to the QL, another prime suspect for being ‘frozen’ tight = always a culprit when someone’s ‘back went out’, along with the Quadratus Lumborum on that same side.

Jocelyn Olivier :: Founder :: Neuromuscular Reprogramming

[rocknrollinbitchforu]

can't believe i'm writing neuromuscular junction fanfiction right now (have to right a short story based on muscle contraction but that was a funnier way to word it)

[easiepeas]

neuromuscular junction abbreviated to NMJ and i keep thinking what has nie mingjue got to do with this