Cardiac Muscle

The muscles of the heart are known as cardiac muscles. They contract on their own, automatically regulated and continue to contract in a rhythmic fashion for the entire life of an organism. The cells of the cardiac muscles are Y shaped and are wider and shorter than the skeletal muscle cells. They are mainlymononucleotide. The actin and myosin arrangement is similar to the arrangement of skeletal striated muscle. Some cardiac muscle cells are auto-rhythmic which means they contract even when there is no neuronal innervation. Intercalated disks are situated between the cardiac muscle cells. There are gap junctions between these disks which act as a communication channels between the cells. The disks allows wave of depolarization to go across the cells to synchronies the muscle contraction.