Morphometric Analysis of Frozen Transverse Sections of Human Skeletal Muscle Taken Post-Mortem

Abstract

Necropsies were obtained from 5 muscles from 5 young women.The muscles subjected to morphometrical analysis were the deltoid, brachial biceps, vastus lateralis, gastrocnemius and soleus. Results of measurements taken indicate significant differences in fibre sizes and fibre type composition in analogous muscles between individuals and between different muscles within individuals. Differences.were also encountered in muscle fibre size during rigor mortis for up to 48 h after death. Our results suggest that the fibre size variability between individuals determined from necropsy samples will contain a component of induced variation not found in muscle biopsies.

Somatic and intramuscular distribution of muscle spindles and their relation to muscular angiotypes

“…Numbers within the plot squares correspond to the enumeration in Table 2. Shorey and Cleland, 1988). Additionally, the data in Table 3 show two interesting points.…”

The effects of aging on biceps brachii muscle fibers: a morphometrical study from biopsies and autopsies

“…Goldspink et al 17 proposed that the difference was not significant in the parameters studied up to 5 hours after death in rats; after this period, the fiber undergoes retraction which can reach 15% of the control value. Shorey & Cleland 10 and Braund & Amling 25 in their studies, concluded that there are progressive effects of rigor mortis on the muscle fibers, towards swelling, and that the degree of swelling can be related to the interval between the death and the removal of the material 10 . On the other hand, Hergarthy & Hooper 26 , in fresh material, proposed that there is retraction of the fiber diameter in sample obtained from necropsies of mice.…”

“…A number of parameters of fiber size have been used by various investigators in their morphometric studies of muscle, particularly the cross-sectional area [1][2][3][4] and the lesser diameter [5][6][7][8] , or a combination of both 9,10 . It was also observed that most of the investigations on cross-sections of human skeletal muscle were made on the vastus lateralis and the available quantitative data were based on it [11][12][13] .…”

“…Significant variations in muscle fiber sizes have been reported on muscles autopsied between 12 and 72 hours after death 10,[14][15][16] . In mice, Gosdspink et al 17 suggested that the development of rigor during 5 hours post-mortem had no effect on the fiber size in frozen sections.…”

Fatigue responses of human triceps surae muscles during repetitive maximal isometric contractions

“…The triceps surae, a principal ankle joint plantar flexor, is composed of the soleus (Sol) and gastrocnemius muscles. The gastrocnemii, with a mixed fiber composition, contain a considerably higher percentage of type II fast-twitch fibers than does the predominantly slow Sol (12,19,29). Because muscles with a higher percentage of fast-twitch fibers have been shown to be more fatigable (9,10,15,25,26), these two muscles should show different fatigue characteristics.…”