RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN FUNCTION AND MORPHOLOGY AFTER HINDLIMB SUSPENSION: EFFECTS OF ELECTRICAL STIMULATION

Abstract

Purposes: To demonstrate the functional and morphological effects of electrical stimulation (ES) in preventing muscle atrophy and to examine the relationship between functional and morphological changes. Design and Methods: Adult male Wistar rats (age 10 weeks) were randomly divided into 3 groups: control (CON), hindlimb suspension (HS) and hindlimb suspension plus electrical stimulation (HS+ES). The rats in the HS+ES group were subjected to stimulation at 50 Hz every other day for 2 weeks. A functional testing was done using up and down stair-climbing, and a morphological analysis (muscle cross-sectional area; MCSA) was done using immunohistochemistry (IHC) staining methods. Results and Conclusion: ES at 50 Hz could suppress muscle atrophy as that seen in functional and morphological changes. All groups, except the HS group, were able to complete the task in both climbing up and down the stairs. Moreover, there was an observed positive relationship between functional and change in morphology of soleus (SOL) and tibialis anterior (TA) muscles for 2 weeks of Hindlimb unloaded (HU). For upstairs-climbing, the correlations were found to be 0.93 in the SOL muscle and 0.54 in the TA muscle. For downstairs-climbing, the correlations were found to be 0.82 in the SOL muscle and 0.48 in the TA muscle.
(Journal of Sports Science and Technology 2014;14(1): 105 -112 )
KEYWORDS: Function, Morphology, Hindlimb suspension, Electrical stimulation