Muscle contraction: viscous-like frictional forces and the impulsive model

Apart from a few experimental studies muscle viscosity has not received much recent analytical attention as a determinant of the contractile process. This is surprising, since any muscle cell is 80% water, and may undergo large shape changes during its working cycle. Intuitively, one might expect the viscosity of the solvent to be an important determinant of the physiological activity of muscle tissue. This was apparent to pioneers of the study of muscle contraction such as Hill and his contemporaries, whose putative theoretical formulations contained terms related to muscle viscosity. More recently, though, a hydrodynamic calculation by Huxley, using a solvent viscosity close to that of water, has been held to demonstrate that viscous forces are negligible in muscle contraction. We have re-examined the role of viscosity in contraction, postulating impulsive acto-myosin forces that are opposed by a viscous resistance between the filaments. The viscous force required, 10(4) times the hydrodynamic estimate, is close to recent experimental measurements, themselves 10(2)-10(3) times the hydrodynamic estimate. This also agrees with contemporary measurements of cytoplasmic viscosity in other biological cells using magnetic bead micro-rheometry. These are several orders of magnitude greater than the viscosity of water. In the course of the analysis, we have derived the force-velocity equation for an isolated half-sarcomere containing a single actin filament for the first time, and from first principles. We conclude that muscle viscosity is indeed important for the contractile process, and that it has been too readily discounted.