As a result of the increased participation of Americans in athletic activities and fitness programs, a dramatic increase in the number and type of activity-related injuries has occurred. The long-term objective of this proposal is to investigate the mechanism of muscle injury which occurs as a result of eccentric contractions, i.e. during lengthening of muscle while it is activation. Specifically, we propose experiments which determine whether muscle damage is cue to the amount of muscle lengthening (strain), the rate of muscle lengthening (strain rate), or the total muscle tension (stress). In this study, the tibialis anterior and soleus muscles will serve as model skeletal muscles and will be subjected to eccentric contraction, isometric contraction, and passive stretch at various stresses, strains and strain rates in order to identify which of these mechanical variables is most related to the level of injury observed. Injury will be determined by measuring the contractile properties of the muscle following one of the three treatments. In addition, muscle morphological properties will be examined and the light microscopic and electron microscopic level. The quantity of damage will be determined using stereological methods. In the final two parts of this proposal, three treatments which are thought to prevent muscle injury will be investigated, namely, """"""""stretching """"""""warming up,"""""""" and """"""""getting into shape."""""""" Next, methods which are thought to ameliorate recovery from muscle injury will be investigated, namely, """"""""stretching out,"""""""" nonsteroidal anti- inflammatory drugs, and isometric stimulation. As a result of these studies, our improved understanding of muscle injury will permit prescription of exercises and movements which could decrease injury and facilitate recovery following injury.
| Meyer, Gretchen; Lieber, Richard L (2018) Muscle fibers bear a larger fraction of passive muscle tension in frogs compared with mice. J Exp Biol 221: |
| Lao, Dieu Hung; Esparza, Mary C; Bremner, Shannon N et al. (2015) Lmo7 is dispensable for skeletal muscle and cardiac function. Am J Physiol Cell Physiol 309:C470-9 |
| Palmisano, Michelle G; Bremner, Shannon N; Hornberger, Troy A et al. (2015) Skeletal muscle intermediate filaments form a stress-transmitting and stress-signaling network. J Cell Sci 128:219-24 |
| Chapman, Mark A; Zhang, Jianlin; Banerjee, Indroneal et al. (2014) Disruption of both nesprin 1 and desmin results in nuclear anchorage defects and fibrosis in skeletal muscle. Hum Mol Genet 23:5879-92 |
| Meyer, Gretchen A; Schenk, Simon; Lieber, Richard L (2013) Role of the cytoskeleton in muscle transcriptional responses to altered use. Physiol Genomics 45:321-31 |
| Meyer, Gretchen A; Lieber, Richard L (2012) Skeletal muscle fibrosis develops in response to desmin deletion. Am J Physiol Cell Physiol 302:C1609-20 |
| Derkacs, Amanda D Felder; Ward, Samuel R; Lieber, Richard L (2012) The use of neural networks and texture analysis for rapid objective selection of regions of interest in cytoskeletal images. Microsc Microanal 18:115-22 |
| Gillies, Allison R; Lieber, Richard L (2011) Structure and function of the skeletal muscle extracellular matrix. Muscle Nerve 44:318-31 |
| Meyer, G A; McCulloch, A D; Lieber, R L (2011) A nonlinear model of passive muscle viscosity. J Biomech Eng 133:091007 |
| Meyer, Gretchen A; Lieber, Richard L (2011) Elucidation of extracellular matrix mechanics from muscle fibers and fiber bundles. J Biomech 44:771-3 |
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