[Age and changes in succinate dehydrogenase activity in functionally different muscles of the young rat]

The antigravitational m. triceps brachii, its antagonist m. brachialis and the muscle having a universal functional specialization--m. serratus ventralis--have been studied in 35 male rats of Wistar strain, 60-105-day-old. Succinate dehydrogenase activity is determined in muscle fibers. Changes in the muscle fibers continue after the rats reach their sex maturation. Certain stageness of the process is observed, but the division of the period into separate steps either is absent (m. brachials), or their number is not great as compared to those during the 1st--60th days after birth. The borders of the periods in the muscles studied coinside (the 70th--74th day). Although it is possible to reveal the periods and separate steps in the changes occurring in the muscle fibers and in the muscles of the animals having reached their sex maturation, nevertheless, the borders between them are not distinct, the reconstruction during this age proceeds slower and more smoothely than before the sex maturation. It is possible that in young rats after sex maturation differentiation of the muscle fibers continues and that, in its turn, stimulates further specialization of the muscles as organs. The changes in the muscle fibers revealed histochemically occur most slowly under a low static loading, and when loading of various modality (kinetic and static) are combined, they are mostly pronounced.