Numerical Simulation of a Physiological Mathematical Model of Energy Consumption in a Sarcomere

Abstract

The paradigm of biological systems provides a framework to quantify the behavior of biological processes. Mathe-matical modeling is one of the analytical tools of biological systems used to reproduce the variables of a system for prediction. This article presents the analysis of muscular contraction, the physiological process responsible of generating force in skeletal muscle, from the point of view of mathematical modeling. The aim is to provide nume-rical evidences about the force generated by the sarcomere, and the energy required to produce such a force. The proposed scheme includes a model to activate the contractile cycle, based on the action potential that reaches the neuromuscular junction, the calcium release into the sarcoplasm, the contraction response, and the quantification of the energy that the sarcomere requires to perform mechanical work. The results shows that the proposed scheme is acceptable because it reproduces experimental data of force, velocity, and energy reported in the literature. The results of the proposed scheme are encouraging to scale the model at the muscle or muscle group level, in such a way that the quantification of energy can be an alternative to the indirect estimation methods of energy consump-tion that currently exist.