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American Zoologist 1998 38(4):729-742; doi:10.1093/icb/38.4.729
© 1998 by The Society for Integrative and Comparative Biology
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Elements of Style in Neuromuscular Architecture1

FRANCES J. R. RICHMOND2
MRC Group in Sensory-Motor Neuroscience, Queen's University at Kingston Ontario K7L 3N6, Canada

Correspondence: 2E-mail: fjr{at}biomed.queensu.ca

SYNOPSIS. Mammalian skeletal muscles are all composed of similar structural elements. However, they gain a large degree of functional specialization by configuring those elements in different ways. The traditional anatomical descriptors of muscle—length, cross-sectional area and angle of pinnation—give little insight into several of the specializations of architecture that can have a major impact on muscular function. These features include the arrangement and lengths of aponeuroses and tendons, the presence of compartmentalization, fiber-type composition, moment-arm relationships at different joint angles and interindividual variation. Quantitative data for these features are often lacking in morphometric studies but they are often essential for the generation of mathematical models of musculoskeletal mechanics.


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