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The importance of muscle relaxation in dynamic cardiomyoplasty.

During the last decade dynamic cardiomyoplasty has been introduced as a new method to treat patients with severe heart failure. This procedure consists of the wrapping of the latissimus dorsi (LD) muscle around the heart with electrical stimulation of the muscle synchronous to cardiac contraction. The optimal pacing mode of the muscle, during the conditioning and working period of the LD muscle, is still unclear. The pace protocol, currently used worldwide, has a maximal number of muscle tetanic contractions of 100 per minute. Data are presented on the LD muscle contraction characteristics using that protocol. Both force measurements from six in situ stimulated goat LD muscles and x-ray evaluation of the movement of metallic clips on wrapped LD muscles in two patients were used. Results demonstrate that LD muscle force is well maintained at the maximal rate of 100 contractions per minute but relaxation is severely hampered. This may lead to diminished support of the failing heart and damage of the wrapped muscle. A pacing protocol is proposed using a lower maximal stimulation rate.

Animals↗

Autonomic interplay in VIP-induced tracheal smooth muscle relaxation.

VIP-induced inhibitory responses of the guinea-pig tracheal pouch, an in vivo preparation designed to demonstrate non-noradrenergic non-cholinergic innervation, where determined in chloraloseurethane anaesthetized animals under control conditions, or pretreated with atropine, propranolol, both atropine and propranolol or atropine-propranolol with indomethacin. Of the five groups, the control group showed a significantly greater cumulative dose-response relaxation to VIP than did the treatment groups. Among the treatment groups, the propranolol pretreated animals showed significantly greater relaxation than the remaining treatments. The group that received atropine alone and the combination of atropine and propranolol showed the least relaxation to VIP. The relaxations in these two groups did not differ significantly. The significantly greater relaxation of the pouch to VIP in the propranolol treated group suggested that the non-noradrenergic inhibitory mechanism for VIP is dependent upon the existing smooth muscle tone of the pouch. Pretreatment of the guinea-pigs with indomethacin did not cause a significant change in the relaxation of the pouch due to VIP suggesting that VIP caused airway smooth muscle relaxation by a mechanism other than that of the release of bronchodilator prostaglandins.

Adrenergic Fibers↗

Motor neuron M3 controls pharyngeal muscle relaxation timing in Caenorhabditis elegans.

1. Previous work has shown that 12 of the 14 types of neurons in the Caenorhabditis elegans pharyngeal nervous system are collectively but not individually necessary for the trapping and transport of bacteria. The aim of these experiments was to determine the functions of individual neuron types by laser-killing combinations of neurons and looking at the effects on behavior. 2. The motor neuron M3 and the sensory neuron I5 are important in trapping bacteria, as shown by two observations. First, when M3 and I5 are both killed, trapping is inefficient in the isthmus (the middle section of the pharynx). Second, M3 is sufficient in the absence of the other 11 neuron types for normal trapping in the corpus (anterior pharynx). 3. M3 and I5 influence the timing of pharyngeal muscle motions. When M3 is killed, pump duration (the interval from the beginning of pharyngeal contraction to the end of relaxation) increases from 170 to 196 ms. This increase is at least partially due to a slower relaxation. Thus, M3 speeds up relaxation. Pump duration decreases to 159 ms when I5 is killed. When I5 and M3 are both killed, pump durations are long (192 ms), just as when M3 alone is killed. These observations, together with previous electron microscopic work showing synapses from I5 to M3, suggest that I5 slows down relaxation by inhibiting M3. 4. To explain these results, I propose that M3 and I5 promote bacterial trapping by regulating the relative timing of muscle relaxation in different regions of the pharynx.

Animals↗

In vitro effect of medicinal plants used to treat erectile dysfunction on smooth muscle relaxation and human sperm.

Chloroform and ethanol extracts of root bark of Securidaca longepedunculata, Wrightia natalensis and Rhoicissus tridentata were investigated for their in vitro activity on the contraction of corpus cavernosal smooth muscle of white New Zealand rabbits. Some of the extracts of these plants relaxed the corpus cavernosal smooth muscle at low concentrations. The highest activity was obtained from Securidaca longepedunculata chloroform extracts at a concentration of 13.0 mg/ml, which induced 66.6% relaxation. Viagra was used as a positive control in this study. Extracts of Securidaca longepedunculata added to human spermatozoa affected certain sperm parameters negatively at 6.5 mg/ml and higher whilst there was no effect at 1.0 mg/ml.

Animals↗