Cross-Sectional Nakagami Images in Passive Stretches Reveal Damage of Injured Muscles

Figure 1

The uniaxial passive stretching system was developed to measure the mechanical properties of ex vivo gastrocnemius muscles (a). The muscle was isolated from mice. One side was clamped on the load cell and the other side was linked with the encoder to record displacement during different deformations (strains). In normal muscle, the increase of muscle length during passive stretching increased the normalized stresses (b). The overstretch injury significantly decreased the muscle strength (stress) at different deformations in 0, 10, 20, 30, and 40% passive stretches. #: significant difference () from the original length in the same muscle. : significant difference () from the normal muscle in the same strain.

(a)

(b)