The pattern of muscle activity influences the morphological, metabolic, and contractile properties of skeletal muscles. For example, the metabolic capacity of muscles is affected specifically by the type of exercise training [1][2][3]. Increased activity or over-loading by removing the synergists causes a compensatory hypertrophy [4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11]. Hypertrophy is also induced by the stretching of matured muscles in vivo [12,13] and cultured myotubes and fibroblasts [14][15][16][17]. Exercise-induced metabolic adaptation of muscles is lost when exercise training is stopped [18]. Further, muscle atrophy is induced by denervation [10,19], spinal cord transection [20], joint immobilization [21][22][23], tenotomy [24,25], spaceflight [26][27][28][29], and/or hindlimb suspension [29][30][31][32]. Most of these models are generally presumed to be models of reduced neuromuscular activity. But the level of use may not be the only factor involved in the atrophic process.There is a close association in the physiological, biochemical, and morphological properties between a motoneuron and the muscle fibers it innervates [1]. Studies to support this view are those in which chronic electrical stimulation at low frequency (1-10 Hz) changes the properties of fast-twitch muscles toward those of slow-twitch muscles [33][34][35][36][37][38].Some of the characteristics of muscle fibers are also altered following cross-innervation [39][40][41][42]. Buller et al. [40] suggested that the neural influence on muscle could be due to neurotrophic effect as well as via nerve impulses.
Muscular Responses to Gravitational Unloading
Morphological propertiesGravitational unloading by exposure to weightlessness [26][27][28][29][43][44][45][46][47] and/or its simulation model, hindlimb suspension [29][30][31][32][48][49][50][51][52][53][54][55][56], causes rapid atrophy in muscles, such as soleus and adductor longus, that are composed predominantly of slow fibers. The cross-sectional areas (CSAs) of both slow-and fasttwitch fibers of rats were less after 14 d of spaceflight and hindlimb suspension than those in the agematched controls [29]. But the degree of atrophy was greater in slow-than fast-twitch fibers [28,29]. Therefore, muscles composed of predominantly slow fibers are more susceptible to atrophy [26,28, 47]. The weights of fast-twitch ankle dorsi-flexors, such as the tibialis anterior (TA) and extensor digitorum longus (EDL), are also generally less after unloading than those of age-matched controls [31, 57]. But these were Japanese Journal of Physiology, 50, 303-314, 2000 Key words: atrophy, fiber-type transformation, contractile properties, neural responses, microgravity.Abstract: Morphological and/or functional characteristics of skeletal muscles have a greater adaptability in response to changes in environmental stimuli. For example, an atrophy associated with a shift of fiber characteristics toward fast-twitch type is a common adaptation of antigravity muscle to a microgravity environment. Neuromuscular responses and ...