A four-state cross bridge model for muscle contraction. Mathematical study and validation (Q761373)

Based on the sliding filament hypothesis of muscle contraction a model is developed which incorporates an elastic element in series with a contractile component and also a parallel elastic element. One consequence of this model is that the filament sliding velocity is not assigned but is determined by the forces present in the system. Probabilities are attached to the different states that can arise in the cross bridges and a set of nonlinear partial differential equations is obtained for these probabilities. Existence and uniqueness is established and numerical results are presented in graphical form.