Discover Biology Muscles are an important part of our body, and without muscles, one would neither be able to walk nor to talk, and, quite literally, the blood would stop flowing within the body if our muscles did not work. In fact, muscles can be referred to as the 'engine' within our body, which we utilize in order to 'propel' ourselves by converting 'energy' into 'motion'. Anything that the brain conceives of doing is in fact carried out by muscles, and since they are long lasting, as well as self healing, and will keep growing stronger if they are used more, they form an incredibly sophisticated piece of machinery within the living body, and must be treated as such. There are three unique types of muscles within a mammal's body, and these are: the skeletal muscles that contract voluntarily, and are attached to the skeleton and come in pairs, the smooth muscles of the digestive system, etc., that contract involuntarily, and the cardiac muscles of the heart, which are also involuntary muscles. (Freudenrich, How Muscles Work)

The basic function of any muscle is that of 'contraction', and a muscle is generally made up of a bundle of 'fibers'. A fiber in turn contains numerous 'myofibrils', or in other words, 'muscle proteins', which allow the muscle to perform its task...

Within the myofibril are two types of filaments, thick, and thin, which are attached to a 'Z-line'. The myofibril that is attached from one end of the Z-line to another is known as the 'sacromere'. When the myosin, or the protein found within the thick filaments, which, when taken in molecular terms, is nothing but a shaft of myosin molecules arranged in a cylindrical shape, grab on to the thin filaments, which are, in turn made up of another protein known as 'actin', then a 'cross bridge' would be formed. The thick filaments end up pulling the thin filaments past the bridges, and this makes the sacromere shorter. What is important is that within a muscle fiber, the signal for contraction of the muscle is synchronized so that all the myofibrils making up the sacromere are shortened at the same time, simultaneously. (Freudenrich, How Muscles Work)
Question: 2

Although it has been stated by scientists and those of the medical profession that it is not possible for the spinal cord of the mammalian body to be able to function independently of the brain, and that without receiving messages from the brain, the spinal cord would not be able to inform the muscles of the body on what to do next, it was after the actor Christopher Reeve's horrendous…