Locomotion and Movement - Notes | Class 11 | Part 1: Human Muscular System

• Locomotion is the voluntary movements resulting in a change in location.
• All locomotion are movements but all movements are not locomotion. Both are interlinked. Examples:

• In Paramecium, cilia help in the movement of food through cytopharynx and in locomotion.
• Hydra use tentacles to capture prey and for locomotion.
• Limbs help to change body postures and for locomotion.

Types of Movement in Human Being

• Amoeboid movement: By pseudopodia formed by streaming of protoplasm as in Amoeba. Cytoskeletal elements like microfilaments also help for this. E.g., Macrophages & leucocytes.
• Ciliary movement: By cilia. E.g., ciliary movements in trachea (to remove dust particles and foreign substances), and oviducts (for the passage of ova).
• Muscular movement: By muscles. E.g., movement of limbs.

• Flagellar movement helps in the swimming of spermatozoa, maintenance of water current in the canal system of sponges, and in locomotion of Protozoans like Euglena.

Human Muscular System

• It includes muscles which are mesodermal in origin.
• Muscles constitute 40-50% of the body weight.
• Muscles have excitability, contractility, extensibility & elasticity.
• Based on location, muscles are 3 types:

Skeletal (Striated) Muscles	Visceral (Non-Striated) Muscles	Cardiac Muscles
Attached to skeleton	In visceral organs	In heart wall
Striations present	Absent	Present
Voluntary	Involuntary	Involuntary
Rich blood supply	Poor blood supply	Rich blood supply
Fatigue muscle	Non-fatigue	Non-fatigue
Multinucleate	Uninucleate	Uninucleate
More mitochondria	Less mitochondria	More mitochondria

Structure of Striated Muscle

• Skeletal muscle is made of muscle bundles (fascicles) held together by collagenous connective tissue layer (fascia).
• Each fascicle contains many muscle fibres (muscle cells).

• Muscle fibres are lined by plasma membrane (sarcolemma) enclosing the sarcoplasm.
• Each muscle fibre contains myofilaments (myofibrils).
• Each myofibril has alternate dark (Anisotropic or A-band) and light striations (Isotropic or I-band). This is due to the presence of 2 fibrous contractile proteins - thin Actin filament and thick Myosin filament.
• I-bands contain actin. A-bands contain actin and myosin. They are arranged parallel to each other.
• A-band bears a lighter middle region (H band) formed of only myosin. A thin dark line (M-line) runs through the centre of H-zone.
• I-band is bisected by a dense dark band called Z-line.


• Region between two Z-lines is called sarcomere. They are the functional units of muscle contraction.

Structure of Contractile Proteins

• An actin filament is made of 2 filamentous (F) actins which form double helix.
• F-actin is a polymer of monomeric Globular (G) actins.

• Actin contains 2 other proteins (tropomyosin & troponin).
• Two filaments of tropomyosin run along the grooves of the F-actin double helix.
• Troponin has 3 subunits. It is seen at regular intervals on tropomyosin.
• In the resting state, a subunit of troponin masks the binding sites for myosin on the actin filaments.
• Each myosin filament is a polymer of many monomeric proteins called Meromyosins.

• A meromyosin has 2 parts:
  • Heavy meromyosin or HMM or cross arm (globular head + short arm): It projects outwards.
  • Light meromyosin or LMM (tail).
• The globular head is an active ATPase enzyme and has binding sites for ATP and active sites for actin.

Select a Topic 👇

• Topic 1: Human Muscular System
• Topic 2: Mechanism of Muscle Contraction
• Topic 3: Human Skeletal System
• Topic 4: Joints, Disorders of Muscular & Skeletal Systems

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