The concept of active state in striated muscle.

Abstract

A review of several models describing skeletal muscle active state are discussed. These model results provide additional reasons to believe that classic active state concepts are not definitive concerning the time course of the level of activation during a contraction. There can be no assurance that the model presented adequately describes the contractile mechanism of a living muscle, but its macroscopic responses are very similar to those found for living muscles, and the assumptions made in constructing the model do not appear to be obviously false or impalusible. It may well be quite difficult to ascertain the state of activation of a muscle soley by perturbing it in some way and then studying its macroscopic mechanical behavior.