Heart Muscle Mechanics

The goal implicit in the research reviewed above is to describe the contractile behavior of heart muscle in terms of crossbridge and filament behavior. It is necessary to elucidate these details in cardiac muscle because of the distinct biochemical differences between skeletal and cardiac myosin. As is evident in this review, significant advances have been made toward describing unique mechanical properties of cardiac muscle crossbridges. Several major problems now require attention: (a) Activation parameters are labile, making mechanical measurements sensitive to measurement perturbation; (b) significant structural inhomogeneities at the cellular and sarcomere level prevent precise assignment of externally measured force to internal structures (force generators, passive elements) within whole cardiac muscle and individual cells; (c) high resting stiffness and forces of poorly understood origin and properties confound attempts to interpret force measurements and dynamics. The differences between heart and skeletal muscle myosin may provide the means for identifying structural counterparts of the Huxley-Simmons model (33); they may also be useful in evaluating the electrostatic and quantum-mechanical models.