Smooth muscle
Musculus levis
Definition
Smooth muscle is an involuntary non-striated muscle. It is divided into two sub-groups; the single-unit (unitary) and multiunit smooth muscle.
- Within single-unit smooth muscle tissues, the autonomic nervous system innervates a single cell within a sheet or bundle and the action potential is propagated by gap junctions to neighboring cells such that the whole bundle or sheet contracts as a syncytium (i.e., a multinucleate mass of cytoplasm that is not separated into cells).
- Multiunit smooth muscle tissues innervate individual cells; as such, they allow for fine control and gradual responses, much like motor unit recruitment in skeletal muscl
References
This definition incorporates text from a public domain edition of Gray's Anatomy (20th U.S. edition of Gray's Anatomy of the Human Body, published in 1918 – from http://www.bartleby.com/107/).
