Skeletal muscle is the most abundant tissue of our body. Apart from its essential role in locomotion, it is also the body’s main store of carbohydrate and protein as well as being one of the principal generators of heat. Its proper maintenance and function are, therefore, essential. A severe acute loss of muscle function is potentially lethal and the debilitating effects of chronic decline in mobility are commonplace experience, so repair and maintenance of the tissue must by both rapid and effective. Since the middle of the last century we have progressively built up a comprehensive descriptive model of the allied mechanisms that maintain our muscles at a size and strength appropriate to the functional demands upon them and that rapidly repair damaged muscles. This volume is an assemblage of the collective experience from the pick of major research groups investigating these aspects of muscle cell biology. The topics range from correlation of changes in pattern of gene expression with the histological sequence during a regenerative episode to the distinctive insult-specific patterns of structural and functional outcome at the other end of the spectrum. The middle ground – who is doing what in this complex process – constitutes the meat of this sandwich.

The book continues by looking at the biochemical, genetic, and molecular elements and mechanisms underlying skeletal muscle health and disease.

With the advent of enzyme histochemistry, which this field and simplistic theories will be expanded or revealed hitherto unseen pathological differences discarded. between muscle disorders, muscle biopsy assumed Diseased muscle cells, as any other cell type, show an important diagnostic role.

This book covers all aspects of basic, essential, recent advances and controversies in myopathology. The major emphasis is on diagnostic myopathology of muscular dystrophies, inflammatory myopathies, mitochondrial myopathies, metabolic myopathies, congenital myopathies, myopathies of miscellaneous etiology, neurogenic and neuromuscular junction disorders, the goal being to broaden readers’ understanding of individual disease subgroups. The book also contains all the essential details needed to establish a neuromuscular lab, making it especially relevant for laboratory technical staff and research scholars.