Review for:The mechanism of filament sliding during contraction of a myofibril

posted: on June 3, 2008 at 9:36AM

Sensory and Motor systems

Muscle contraction

After going through the material in class I wanted students to have a way to visualize what was happening to at the cellualr level in a muscle.

A.P., Honors or Advanced

Students looked at this animation in class and at home.

Provides visualization or animation

It has a good review of the structure of the muscle at the start. This helps remind students of the larger interaction of the myofibrils in the muslce. The end of the sequence allows students to add and remove Ca+ and see the impact on the actin and myosin filaments. This is a useful tool because students can see the change in conformation of the proteins involved. It was a great review of the content we used in class. I have a second animation on my teacher website that provides addtional review and also allows students to speed up the rate of the contraction. It was most helpful to use these two together. Both are easy to access and use in class or at home. The second animation (initially posted on the TERC site by Cindy Jenson) can be downloaded to a computer to use on its own.

The middle part of the animation is visually weak. It covers how Ca+ is released by the sarcoplasmic reticulum. It provides good information, but there is not a great visual reference to really helps students see neurotransmitter bind to the receptors on the muslce and trigger an action potential. It is helpful, but I would like to see more detail in the content.