Lexic.us

Definition of Cardiac muscle

1. Noun. The muscle tissue of the heart; adapted to continued rhythmic contraction.

Definition of Cardiac muscle

1. Noun. (muscle) The striated and involuntary muscle of the vertebrate heart. ¹

¹ Source: wiktionary.com

Medical Definition of Cardiac muscle

1. Tissue specialised for contraction. See twitch muscle, catch muscle: Cardiac muscle (heart muscle) is a striated but involuntary muscle responsible for the pumping activity of the vertebrate heart. The individual muscle cells are joined through a junctional complex known as the intercalated disc and are not fused together into multinucleate structures as they are in skeletal muscle. Skeletal muscle is a rather non-specific term usually applied to the striated muscle of vertebrates that is under voluntary control. The muscle fibres are syncytial and contain myofibrils, tandem arrays of sarcomeres. Smooth muscle is muscle tissue in vertebrates made up from long tapering cells that may be anything from 20-500m long. Smooth muscle is generally involuntary and differs from striated muscle in the much higher actin/myosin ratio, the absence of conspicuous sarcomeres and the ability to contract to a much smaller fraction of its resting length. Smooth muscle cells are found particularly in blood vessel walls, surrounding the intestine (especially the gizzard in birds) and in the uterus. The contractile system and its control resemble those of motile tissue cells (for example fibroblasts, leucocytes) and antibodies against smooth muscle myosin will cross react with myosin from tissue cells, whereas antibodies against skeletal muscle myosin will not. See: dense bodies. This entry appears with permission from the Dictionary of Cell and Molecular Biology (11 Mar 2008)

Cardiac Muscle Pictures

Click the following link to bring up a new window with an automated collection of images related to the term: Cardiac Muscle Images

Lexicographical Neighbors of Cardiac Muscle

Literary usage of Cardiac muscle

Below you will find example usage of this term as found in modern and/or classical literature:

1. The Journal of Physiology by Physiological Society (Great Britain). (1896)
"Action of carbonic dioxide on voluntary and on cardiac muscle. By AD WALLER and SCM SOWTON. It has been previously shown: (1) that the staircase effect, ..."

2. Hand-book of physiology by William Senhouse Kirkes (1899)
"cardiac muscle. The muscular fibres of the heart, unlike those of most of the involuntary muscles, are striated ; but although, in this respect, Fig. 113. ..."

3. A Manual of Pharmacology and Its Applications to Therapeutics and Toxicology by Torald Hermann Sollmann (1922)
"The direct regulating action of digitalis т the cardiac muscle may play some part; for it has been found that digitalis tends to remove irregularities in ..."

4. Physiology and Biochemistry in Modern Medicine by John James Rickard Macleod (1922)
"Before going into this question, however, it will be well for us to consider briefly the manner of response of cardiac muscle fiber to a stimulus, ..."

5. An Outline of psychobiology by Knight Dunlap (1917)
"THE CONTRACTION OF cardiac muscle. cardiac muscle, in its normal condition, like striated muscle in Bieder- mann's solution, contracts periodically without ..."

6. Proceedings of the Cambridge Philosophical Society by Cambridge Philosophical Society (1883)
"(2) On certain points in the function of the cardiac muscle. By WH GASKELL, MD, FRS PART I. On the rhythmical properties of the cardiac muscle. ..."

7. The Medical and Surgical Reporter (1890)
"MICROSCOPY OF THE HYPERTROPHIED cardiac muscle. There are two points of interest in regard tu the microscopical appearance of hyper- trophied heart muscle ..."

Other Resources Relating to: Cardiac muscle