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You and your lab partner use a living nerve and muscle preparation to study musc

ID: 79299 • Letter: Y

Question

You and your lab partner use a living nerve and muscle preparation to study muscle contraction. When you stimulate the nerve electrically, the muscle contracts; why? When you turn off the stimulator but add a high concentration of caffeine to the fluid surrounding the tissues, the muscle contracts; why (speculate on possible sites/mechanisms of action)? When curare (which blocks neuromuscular transmission) is added with caffeine, contraction occurs; why (speculate, and how does this alter your previous answer)? Can you identify a single site of action from this information? If not, what additional experiment would narrow your choices?

Explanation / Answer

when the muscles are stimulated electrically impulse occur through the elrctrodes which are very near to the skin.The impulses try to mimic the action command usually sent from the central nervous system,this causes the muscles to contract.

Like many other psycho active drugs caffiene is so powerfol that it penetrates the blood brain barrier very easily.They imitate or give instructions to the nervous system as originally as the system does.that is the reason why muscle contracts with the intake of caffeine.