Biomedical subjects

B B Hamrell

Publications and source records attributed to B B Hamrell.

20 records · Page 2Linked to original sources

PubMedDate not supplied

Increased active elastic stiffness in tetanized papillary muscles from hypertrophied rabbit hearts.

Studies of skeletal muscle suggest that the ratio of stiffness to tension will increase in the presence of a slower rate of crossbridge head rotation from the attached perpendicular state (non-force generating) to the attached 45 degree angle state (force generating). Maximum shortening velocity is depressed proportionate with adenosinetriphosphatase activity in pressure overload cardiac hypertrophy. The maximum rate of isometric force generation also is less than normal but active isometric force levels are normal. The myosin isoenzymes of hypertrophied heart muscle are shifted to predominantly slower than normal types. Among a number of possibilities, the overall rate of crossbridge cycling may be less than normal and crossbridge head rotation may be slower. We reasoned that a greater than normal ratio of active elastic stiffness to total tension development in hypertrophy would be suggestive of an alteration from normal in crossbridge dynamics. We studied right ventricular septal papillary muscles from normal rabbits and from rabbits with hypertrophy induced by pulmonary artery constriction. A high level of mechanical activation was obtained by tetanizing the muscles in solutions containing caffeine. Small (less than or equal to 2% muscle length) and rapid (0.8 ms) length perturbations were applied to the preparations with a servo-controlled motor. Active elastic stiffness was estimated from the linear relationship of minimum (for releases) or maximum (for stretches) tension reached during a length change with muscle length change (strain). Although total tetanic tension development was normal in the hypertrophied muscles (p greater than 0.1), active elastic stiffness was greater than normal in hypertrophy (p less than 0.025).(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)

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PubMedDate not supplied

Isotonic muscle and sarcomere shortening in rabbit right ventricular preparations.

Cardiac muscle fibers are suspended within and attached to an elaborate connective tissue matrix that includes numerous compliant interconnections. Myocardial muscle fibers are not branched, but connect at small angles to each other to form a branched array. Therefore, fiber shortening occurs as a vector within a connective tissue framework and individual fiber work may exceed external muscle work. To evaluate the latter we measured isotonic muscle shortening simultaneous with sarcomere shortening. The hearts were obtained from rabbits (n = 4) anesthetized with intravenous pentobarbital sodium. We isolated right ventricular trabeculae or free wall papillary muscles in Krebs-Ringer's solution (2.5 mM Ca2+, 28 degrees C). Cross-sectional area was 0.038 +/- 0.003 mm2 (+/- SE throughout) and resting sarcomere length was 2.33 +/- 0.12 microns. Sarcomere length was measured with laser diffraction (He-Ne, lambda = 632.8 nm) during force clamps in single- and paired-stimulation twitches. Relative sarcomere shortening (delta SL) was isotonic sarcomere shortening divided by sarcomere length at the onset of isotonic shortening. Relative muscle shortening (delta ML) was isotonic muscle shortening divided by muscle length at zero load; the latter was estimated from the stress-strain relation of elastic recoil at the onset of load clamps. Average delta SL/delta ML at peak shortening was 3.38 +/- 0.16 and was independent of stimulus pattern, isotonic load, amount of shortening, time during a twitch or laser beam position along a muscle. Therefore, the ratio greater than 1 was neither a function of activation nor heterogeneous sarcomere length change.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)

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