Sarcomere, A three dimensional teaching model

A sarcomere is the contractile unit of striated skeletal muscle.  This professional model is used by anatomy instructors to illustrate the sliding filament theory of muscular contraction.

 
The "Sarcomere - Sliding Filament Model" was born of necessity as most inventions are. While teaching classes on the subject of muscular contraction, it became obvious that verbal descriptions of the contractile process in striated skeletal muscle were terribly inadequate. Making a drawing on a blackboard was no more effective than the pictures in a textbook. Few students could really comprehend the process of the sliding filament theory wherein a muscle can change its overall length, yet none of its individual parts ever changed length, they slide past each other.

This fascinating model, created by Mark Bigelow,  represents the parts of a sarcomere, the contractile unit of striated skeletal muscle. The sarcomere is not round, it has a hexagon shape as represented in the model. Actin and myosin filaments, the Z-band, the M-line are all represented on this model.

Patent #7413441

BigelowSeminars@aol.com