Length-tension relationship of the feline thyroarytenoid muscle

Vocal fold tension during phonation is generated by coordinated contraction of the intrinsic laryngeal muscles. The thyroarytenoid muscle has been found to have increased stiffness at various levels of strain when compared with other intrinsic laryngeal muscles. The objective here is to test the hypothesis that the thyroarytenoid muscle exhibits high passive tension during maximal isometric tetanic force generation, and to test the hypothesis that the thyroarytenoid maintains the ability to generate contractile force at high levels of strain more effectively than other skeletal muscle. The thyroarytenoid muscles (n=9) and digastric muscle strips (n=7) were removed from adult random-bred cats. Maximal isometric tension and passive tension at optimum length were measured from each muscle in vitro. Active and passive length-tension curves were constructed for each muscle. The contractile properties of the thyroarytenoid group were compared with those of the digastric muscle group. The thyroarytenoid muscle group required on average 140 mN of passive tension to generate maximal isometric tetanic tension. This represented 39% of the average maximal isometric tetanic tension generated by the muscles. These results were significantly higher than the digastric muscle group, which required on average 28 mN of passive tension (9% of maximal isometric tetanic tension, p<0.05). At 110% of optimum length, the thyroarytenoid muscle maintained 89.8% of maximal isometric tetanic force, whereas the digastric muscle group maintained 67.7% of maximal isometric tetanic force (p<0.05). The thyroarytenoid muscle exhibits higher passive tension when generating maximal isometric tension than the digastric muscle control group. The thyroarytenoid muscle maintains higher levels of active tension at high strain than the digastric muscle control group. We conclude that these findings are related to the ability of the thyroarytenoid muscle to function as a fine tensor of the vocal fold in a high strain environment.