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TETANUS

ON FROG MUSCLE 2


Tetanus is defined as contraction of a whole muscle that generates maximum force, it occurs
when stimulus frequency is high, in this case the muscle does not have time to relax between
stimulus impulses.

The voltage was kept constant, the program was set to generate 60 pulses, and the interval
between pulses was varied.
The waveform graph shows the results of the tetanus part of the lab. Time (ms) is on the x-axis
and the Force (N) is on the y-axis.


As you can see from the graph the smaller the interval between stimuli (the more frequent the
action potentials are fired), the greater the force due to tetanus. There was one contradicting
data point where the force decreased with a decreasing interval (400 ms to 200 ms interval),
but it was a small deviation from the expected value, so it was most likely an anomaly.

Now, this video shows the behavior of the isolated muscle during the experiment
The muscle did not have time to relax as the stimulus interval was decreased.

Tetanus was observed in the 20 ms stimulus interval. Since the muscle fiber does not have time
to relax between each stimulus, the contraction becomes one.

Fatigue

is defined as a decline in the ability of he muscle to generate force or it results from a depletion
of stored energy
although in living animals , i occurs because the motor drive for the cns is reduced rather than a
depletion in stored energy

The waveform graph shows the results of the fatigue part of the lab. Time (s) is on the x-axis
and the Force (N) is on the y-axis. The voltage was kept constant, the program was set to
generate 1750 pulses, and the interval between pulses was set to 20 ms

The muscle generated maximum force for a few seconds, then the force steadily declined
starting from 35s

Table 4.1 has the maximum force taken from the waveform graph and the force at the end of
the simulation.
there was an extreme decline in force strarting from the maximum force to the force at the end
of the simulation. The program automatically calculated the % decrease but you can calculate it
using the formula above.

The data showed that there was a 55.6% decline meaning that most of the force was not being
generated at the end of the simulation.

The isolated muscle fatigued because the stimulus was so frequent and it did not have time to
relax. Thus, the force of the contraction became weaker.


In essence, fatigue will prevent skeletal muscle from using all of the ATP stored throughout the
body, and thus is extremely important in all animals’ physiology. It will also prevent damage to
the muscle from overexertion.


The isolated muscle was unable to maintain prolonged contraction due to muscle fatigue.
Muscle fatigue is caused by the decrease in ATP released from the sarcoplasmic reticulum
which causes a decrease in force.


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