Lesson · S.1.6
The muscular system
The three types of muscle tissue, how a muscle actually contracts, and how the nervous system gives the command to move.
ObjectiveS.1.6Read1 minExam weightHuman Anatomy and Physiology ≈ 41% of Science
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See editions and pricing →What you will be able to do
- Tell skeletal, cardiac, and smooth muscle apart by control and structure.
- Explain how actin and myosin filaments sliding inside the sarcomere produces a contraction.
- Describe how a nerve signal triggers a muscle fibre to contract.
What the lesson concludes
- Skeletal muscle is voluntary and striated, cardiac muscle is involuntary and striated, smooth muscle is involuntary and unstriated.
- Tendons connect muscle to bone, a pairing the TEAS often tests against ligaments, which connect bone to bone.
- Contraction happens when actin and myosin filaments slide together inside the sarcomere, using ATP for energy.
- Muscles need a nerve signal to contract, and most movements require several muscles acting together, not one muscle alone.