Description
Props and Materials
Concepts
Learning Objectives
Set-Up
How To Demonstrate
Questions To Ask
Sample Dialogue
Background Information
Credits
For a paper copy of this guide, go here.
Description
This activity will explore how muscles work at several different scales. Each scale is represented by a nested box with a diagram on the lid and a corresponding activity or model explaining something about how muscles work at that scale. The largest scale is a model of an arm, allowing visitors to explore how muscles contract. A smaller scale model demonstrates that muscles are fibrous and bundled into groups. The smaller scale models represent proteins that work together to effect muscle contraction, and the smallest represents the molecular process that occurs to release energy necessary for contraction.
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Props and Materials
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- Treat all props with respect.
- Do not allow visitors to bend or scratch the arm. The lifting mechanism works best when the arm is flat on a flat surface.
- Do not untwist the myosin and actin fibers.
- You can pull out sections of the muscle fiber model, but do not let visitors try to pull out any of the fibers that are permanently attached. Also, be careful with the smallest fiber, as it is thin and breakable.
Concepts
- Muscles move bones connected to joint via contraction, which means they become shorter. This means muscles can only pull bones, not push.
- Muscle is a well organized tissue. Muscles cells are long fibers held together in bundles; these bundles are bundled together in a larger group that forms the shape of the muscle.
- Within a muscle cell there are structures often called thick filaments and thin filaments. A chemical process can cause the filaments to bind together, which pulls the filaments closer together, causing muscles to contract, or shorten.
- ATP is molecule that works like a rechargeable battery, releasing energy for a muscle to contract and eventually "recharging" so that the muscle can contract again.
Learning Objectives
- Using a lever model of an arm, visitors will pull a string to simulate a muscle contracting, which will help them visualize how muscles become shorter to pull bones into position.
- Looking at a model, visitors will observe muscle cells bundled together and notice that groups of these bundles form a muscle.
- Visitors will connect models of thin filaments to a thick filament, then cause the thin filaments to move, simulating muscle contraction.
- Visitors will use balls to represent the molecule ATP, removing a ball to simulate the chemical process that releases energy to allow a muscle to contract. The ball can be added back to represent the fact that eventually ATP can release more energy.
Set-Up
- Take out the nested boxes and the model of the arm.
- Have the other models ready.
How To Demonstrate
- Attract visitors to your activity by asking them questions like, "Do you want to move some muscles?" or, "Do you know how your muscles work?"
- Give them the arm and ask if they can move the hand using the string. Let them know that the string represents a muscle. Ask how the string moves the hand, encouraging them to notice that the string pulls up the hand by getting shorter. Let them know that the process of a muscle shortening to perform an action is called a contraction. The shortening action can pull a bone into a new place if the bone is connected to another bone by a joint. Let them know that muscles can only pull, and encourage them to think about how the hand would come back down with a pulling action. Let them know that while they can bring the hand down by releasing the string on the model, a real arm requires a muscle to pull in the opposite direction.
- Ask them if they know what a muscle looks like. Show them the biggest box and have them open it. Take out the model of the muscle fibers. The smallest dowel sticking out is a muscle cell, also called a muscle fiber. Fibers are bundled together into groups, which are themselves bundled into a larger group. The unique shapes of muscles on both the macro and micro scale allows them to function as they do.
- Ask them what they think the inside of a muscle cell looks like, and have them open the second box. Take out the thin and thick filament board, explaining that within a muscle cell is another bundle of smaller fibers. These fibers are called filaments, and they are arranged in a pattern similar to the lid off the box. Let the visitor know that the filaments are primarily made of proteins called actin and myosin. Myosin is the thick filament with the "heads" sticking out; these heads are part of the molecule that sticks out from the strand. Actin is a thin filament. It doesn't really have loops like the model, but can attach to myosin like the model can.
- Instruct the visitor to loop the actin over the myosin heads, explaining that a chemical process in the muscle cell can cause these two filaments to bind. Have the visitor pull the actin so they can see the myosin heads move, letting them know that the process of binding to actin causes the myosin heads to move, which causes the actin to move. Have the visitor move all the actin, moving the filaments toward the center. Once they are done, ask whether the size of the overall structure changed. It's shorter, because this section has contracted. Myosin binding to actin pulls actin in so that a segment of muscle gets shorter; when all the segments shorten the muscle bunches, allowing it to pull bone into a new position.
- Ask the visitors how they think the myosin got the energy to move the actin, then have them open the last box. Explain that the cube inside represents ATP, which is like a rechargeable battery that gives muscles energy.
- Take out the ball with the smaller attached balls and give the structure to the visitor, letting them know the structure represents ATP and the smaller balls are molecules known as phosphate. Have the visitor remove one of the phosphates. Let them know they just broke a phosphate bond, which released energy. This energy would activate the myosin heads, allowing them to bind to actin. The remaining ball structure is now called ADP, meaning the molecule only has two phosphates and can't release more energy.
- Ask them how we get more energy, leading them to the answer of food. Give them the red pepper and have them open it. When they attach the phosphate from the pepper, they are representing the way food breaks down to turn ADP back into ATP so we can get more energy for muscles to contract.
- Ask the visitors what they think signals ATP to break a bond. Discuss nerves, which are attached to our muscles and inform our muscles how to move. Have the visitors think of tasks they perform all the time, such as reaching out to take something that is handed to them, or riding a bike. Talk to the visitor about whether these tasks are easier than tasks we have never done before due to muscles being accustomed to moving that way, or due to established neural pathways. Refer them to the exhibit to learn more about procedural memory, which is sometimes called "muscle memory."
Questions To Ask
- Where do you have muscles?
- How are muscles attached to your bones?
- How would your muscles be different if they were attached to your bones in different places?
- How do you think the structure of muscles helps them to function?
- Do you know what a cell is?
- Where do you get the energy to move your muscle?
- How does your body know to release energy to move a muscle?
- Do you think your muscles can remember things?
Sample Dialogue
Key:
- P Presenter
- G Guest
- Bold italics indicate action.
- Italics indicate a note to the presenter.
- □ indicates a cue
| P | Hi there! Want to look at some muscles? | |
| G | Okay! | |
| P | Do you know what's on this box? | |
| G | A muscle. | |
| P | Awesome. Do you have any ideas about how your muscles work? | |
| G | You have to stretch them. | |
| P | Cool. Can you stretch some muscles for me? | |
| G | I can touch my toes. | |
| P | Fabulous. Can you move this arm? | |
| G | Okay. | |
| P | Great! How did you make that arm move? | |
| G | I pulled a string. | |
| P | Definitely. On this model, the string is the muscle. What do you notice about the string when you pull it? | |
| G | It moves the hand. | |
| P | Right. What about the length of the string--does that change? | |
| G | Yes. It got shorter. | |
| P | Absolutely. That's what your muscles do when they help you move your bones--they shorten. This is called a contraction, and it can pull your bones where you want them to go. Can you push that string? | |
| G | No. | |
| P | How do you bring the hand back down? | |
| G | Loosen the string. | |
| P | Right. That's not quite how your muscles work, because you want to be able to control how your arm comes down, instead of just letting it flop. This is why your muscles often work in pairs--your bicep brings your forearm up, and your tricep brings it back down. Do you know what's inside your muscles? | |
| G | Blood?. | |
| P | Yep, there's definitely some blood. Here, open this box to find out what the inside of your muscle looks like. | |
| G | Is that all blood? | |
| P | They do look like blood vessels--that's because muscle cells are long and stringy. They're called fibers. Here's a model of what it looks like, with parts cut away so you can see better. That part sticking out at the end is a cell. Do you know what a cell is? | |
| G | Yeah. | |
| P | Great! What do you know about them? | |
| G | They're the building blocks of life. | |
| P | Definitely. Does that look like a building block? | |
| G | No. More like a building string. | |
| P | Yeah. Muscle cells have a different shape than a lot of other cells because of the special jobs they do. What else do you notice about this model? | |
| G | There are a lot of tubes. | |
| P | Exactly. That's because cells have to work together to help the muscle move. They need to be all lined up and work as one so the muscle can contract. Want to see how it contracts? | |
| G | Okay. | |
| P | Cool. Open up this box so we can see deeper inside the muscle. What do you see? | |
| G | Another box. | |
| P | Yeah! That diagram on the lid shows thick and thin filaments. A filament is a thin thread or fiber; it's just what we call these things. They're mostly made of proteins called actin and myosin. Myosin is the thick filament--can you tell which one that is? | |
| G | This one? | |
| P | Definitely. Actin is the thin filament. These filaments are the things that actually make your muscle move. Want to see how it works? | |
| G | You want to tell me and I have no objection to hearing it. | |
| P | Great! This board has those filaments on it. Do you remember which is which? | |
| G | This one is myo-something and this one is acti-something. | |
| P | Yep. Do these look a little different from the diagram? | |
| G | Um . . . the acti-something is loopy. | |
| P | Right. Actin looks something like this, but in real life these parts that stick out from the myosin don't go inside the loops; they just connect to the actin itself. But for now, we're going to connect the myosin to the actin by looping the actin over the myosin. Can you make it connect? | |
| G | Yes. | |
| P | Good job. When the myosin and actin connect, a chemical process occurs that forces the myosin heads to move like this. What happened when I moved the myosin heads? | |
| G | The other one moved. | |
| P | Exactly. Now, if we want the muscle to keep contracting, all these heads would move back into the previous position, and connect again to move the actin farther along. Can you do that? | |
| G | Yeah. | |
| P | Good job! See how the actin is inching along? It keeps doing that as long as the muscle keeps contracting. Okay, let's try attaching all the actin. | |
| G | Okay. | |
| P | Great! Now that all the myosin and actin is bound together, the myosin heads move--let's move all the heads. | |
| G | Okay. | |
| P | Now that you did that, do you notice anything different about this overall structure? | |
| G | It moved. | |
| P | Is it longer or shorter? | |
| G | Shorter! | |
| P | Right! All of this actin is attached to little walls. When the myosin attaches to the actin and slides the actin inward, the actin slides the walls inward. This structure is repeated over and over again, one beside another. Each one gets shorter, so the overall muscle gets shorter. Can you move it back? | |
| G | Sure. | |
| P | Do you want to see inside these filaments? | |
| G | I guess I'm pretty curious about opening all the boxes. | |
| P | Great! Go ahead and open that last box. What does that have on it? | |
| G | Some shapes and letters. | |
| P | Yep! ATP is a molecule. Do you know what a molecule is? | |
| G | It's like . . . really small. | |
| P | Right. It's a combination of atoms, and atoms are the smallest bits of stuff that make us who we are. ATP is a combination that is made up of other molecules, one of which is phosphate. Can you tell which ones are phosphate? | |
| G | The spheres that are blue. | |
| P | Excellent. Try pulling the one at the end off. Did that take some energy? | |
| G | Not really. | |
| P | Sure, it didn't take much. But that Velcro holding this molecule together represents a bond, which requires energy. When you break that bond, the energy is released, and that's the energy your muscle using to contract. Now you're left with a new molecule called ADP. Think of this like an uncharged battery--it can't give you the energy you need for your muscles to contract. How do you think we can charge it up? | |
| G | Maybe put the ball back on. | |
| P | Definitely. More phosphate would make this molecule back into ATP, ready to be used again, but we already lost that phosphate. We need to get more. Any ideas where we could get it? | |
| G | No. | |
| P | Where do you get energy from? | |
| G | Sleeping. Gatorade. Dubstep. | |
| P | Cool! You mentioned Gatorade, which has sugar in it. Sugar is a kind of carbohydrate, and carbohydrates break down to give us energy. Alright, so we need some food to give us energy. I just happen to have a red pepper. Want to get some phosphate from it? | |
| G | This is adorable. | |
| P | Great! Let's stick this phosphate to the ADP, and now we have ATP again. Ready to move your muscle? | |
| G | Sure. | |
| P | Okay, the phosphate bond breaks, giving your myosin the energy to connect to your actin. What does that do? | |
| G | They connect and the actin moves in. | |
| P | Great. And that happens over and over again in a series, because muscles cells are organized and shaped in a way so they can work together, like in this model. And then what happens with your arm? | |
| G | It moves! | |
| P | Yay! You did it. Okay, what do you think caused that phosphate to come off in the first place? | |
| G | I don't know. | |
| P | Go ahead and move your own arm. How did your arm muscle know to contract? | |
| G | Um. My brain told it to. | |
| P | Yep. Your brain can send a signal, which causes the ATP to react by breaking the phosphate bond. If you do the same thing a lot, like ride a bike, do you think your muscles can "remember" what to do? | |
| G | Maybe. | |
| P | That would be cool. Or maybe your brain remembers and is so used to firing that signal, you don't even have to think about it. If you want to learn more about the signals your brain sends to your muscles, check out the exhibit. Thanks for learning about muscles with me! |
Background Information
Click to jump to any of these topics:
Types of muscles
Skeletal muscles
Muscle structure
Muscle cells
Muscle contraction
ATP
Nerves and muscles
Procedural memory
Types of muscles__________________________
There are three different types of muscles: cardiac, smooth and skeletal. This activity focuses on skeletal muscles.
Cardiac muscle: these muscles form the heart and are not found anywhere else. Their unique spiral shape tightens during contraction, causing the heart to pump blood. Think of these muscles as a wet towel--when you twist the towel, you wring out the water; heart muscles work in a similar way.
Smooth muscle: these muscles line hollow organs and vessels such as the stomach, bladder, uterus, intestines, and blood vessels, and are responsible for making these organs contract. They are called "smooth" because they lack visible striations; this is because the fibers in smooth muscles are much finer. This results in smaller and slower contractions, but smooth muscles are able to contract for longer periods of time since they are using less energy. Both cardiac and smooth muscle are controlled by the automatic nervous system.
Skeletal muscle: these muscles cover our skeletons, allowing us to move our bones and everything else. Skeletal muscles allow us to make large and fast movements, but they require a lot of energy and tire quickly. The visible striations in skeletal muscles are a result of their structure.
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Skeletal muscles__________________________
The place where bones come together are called joints. Joints allow animals to move and bend, although some joints do not allow movement. For instance, the bones of the skull are fused such that the bones do not move. Immovable joints are known as sutures. At movable joints, bones are bound together by ligament. Ligament is a flexible, fibrous connective tissue that gives joints structure and keeps them stable. Muscles are attached to bone (or to a structure, such as an eyeball) by tendons. Tendons are another kind of flexible, fibrous tissue that allow bones or structures to move.Muscles cause bones to move by contraction, or shortening. Each muscle can shorten in only one direction; therefore muscles only pull and don't push. For this reason, muscles usually work in pairs or groups; one muscle may pull part of a joint, while another muscle pulls it back into its original position.
To get the most work out of each muscle, muscles and tendons are arranged efficiently; tendon placement allows for large movement with the least amount of contraction. For example, think about your arm. The bicep is the muscle in your upper arm, situated on top of the humerus bone. When this muscle shortens, it pulls up your forearm. The upper tendon of your bicep is situated near the top of the humerus, near your shoulder. Because that connection is far from the joint, the muscle has to shorten less to lift the arm. If bicep was shorter and the upper connection was somewhere closer to your elbow, the bicep would have to do a lot more shortening to lift the forearm. The tricep, on the lower part of your humerus bone, brings the forearm down in much the same way.
1.You can think about the arm as a lever. Just like the highrail bike, the distance of the weight from the rail (which is the fulcrum of the lever) allows the weight to do more work than the weight of the person on the bike. The bike being such a short distance from the fulcrum means a lot of work needs to be done to tip the person off the bike. You can also compare this to the lever in Building 3; the farther you get away from the weight, the easier it is to lift. In the case of the arm, the joint is the fulcrum and the tendon connecting the bicep to your shoulder is as far away as it can get.The hand has almost no muscles. Instead, your fingers are attached by very long tendons to muscles in your forearm. This allows for easy movement of fingers with less work from muscles.
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Muscle structure__________________________
You can think of skeletal muscles as bundles of fibers that are bundled into bigger bundles. Each of these bundles is sheathed by a layer of connective tissue that compartmentalizes a bundle from other bundles, as well as gives it shape. These connective tissues are collectively called "mysia" (the plural form of "myseum"); the prefix to the term "mysia" explains where that layer is within the muscle.
Epimyseum is the outer layer of mysia. It sheathes the outside of the skeletal muscle, which allows the muscle to retain its structure even when it contracts powerfully. Within the epimyseum are bundles are known as fascicles, which is a word that means "small bundles". (Anatomically, the word "fascicle" is used for other "bundles"; for instance, rather confusingly, bundles of nerves are known as fascicles also.) Also within the epimyseum, among the fascicles, are blood vessels, which supply oxygen and nutrients and dispose of waste.
Fascicles are sheathed by perimyseum. Specific fascicles can be stimulated by the nervous system in order to create specific movements. Within the fascicles are bundles of muscle fibers, which are in fact individual muscle cells (also known as myocyctes. And no, I don't know why there are three different names.)Each muscle fiber (cell) is coated in endomyseum, a network of connective tissue. This delicate, web-like tissue contains capillaries and the terminal of an axon of a motor neuron, which stimulates the individual fiber to move.
In skeletal muscles, these three layers of connective tissue ("mysia") have collagen that tangles with the collagen of the tendon, creating a strong connection. The other end of the tendon fuses with the outer layer of bone. When muscle fibers (cells) contract, tension travels along the mysia, through the tendon, which pulls on the bone to move it. Muscles can also connect to tendon-like sheets, such as the network of connective tissue on the human back, and fascia, another kind of connective tissue.
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Muscle cells __________________________
When muscle cells develop in the embryonic stage, there are hundreds of pre-cells structures, each with their own nucleus, called myoblasts. These myoblasts fuse to create a single muscle cell, resulting in a cell with multiple nuclei. The multiple nuclei allow muscle cells to produce the large amount of proteins and enzymes necessary for muscle contraction.
Muscle cells are called fibers because they are longer and more cylindrical than other cells. Because muscle cells are so unique, they have a lot of special terminology, some of which is related to the Greek term sacro, which means "flesh". The cell membrane is called sarcolemma, and the cytoplasm (the fluid, gel-like substance that holds the organelles within a cell) is called sarcoplasm. The endoplasmic recticulum, which in other cells is a network of membranous tubules with ribosomes that perform protein synthesis, is called the sacroplasmic reticulum, and is responsible for storing and releasing calcium ions.
Within the muscle fiber (or cell) there are still more fibers called myofibrils (also known as muscle fibrils). These myofibrils are attached to the sarcolemma on either end and surrounded by the sarcoplasm, and each myofibril is surrounded by a cuff of sacroplasmic reticulum tubules. The myofibrils are divided into sections known as sacromeres. Think of a muscle fiber as a train and sacromeres as the cars--they divide the fiber in transverse sections and are arranged end to end. The perpendicular walls at the front and back ends of sacromeres separating sacromeres from each other are known as Z-discs (or sometimes Z-lines, since pictures are two-dimensional).Within each sacromere are hundreds of myofilaments, or thick and thin filaments. "Filament" means slender thread or fiber. The thick filaments contains one of the contractive proteins, called myosin, as well as other support proteins. The thin filament contains the other contractive protein, called actin, as well as other support proteins. For this reason, thick filament is sometimes just called myosin and actin. Two of the "supporting proteins" help regulate movement and are known as troponin and tropomyosin.
Myosin and actin are arranged within a sacromere as shown below. The actin is connected to the Z-disc, such that when the actin moves inward toward the center of the sacromere on either side, the Z-discs move closer together and the entire sacromere becomes shorter. Since sacromeres are arranged end to end, when they all contract the entire muscle becomes shorter.
Thick and thin filaments and their arrangement within sacromeres are responsible for the striated appearance of skeletal muscles. The Z-discs create dark lines (called Z-bands). The places where thin filaments are not overlapped by thin filaments are lighter in color, as there is more space (these are known as I-bands). The places where the thin and thick filaments overlap are thicker and darker in color (these are known as A-bands), and the places where there are thick filaments not overlapped by thin are a little lighter than A-bands and darker than I-bands (these are known as H-bands). In the middle of the sacromere there is a line known as the M-band, which is part of the cell structure that binds one myofibril to another. (back to topic list)
Muscle contraction __________________________
When a muscle is not contracting, the regulatory proteins troponin and tropomyosin bind together, wrapping around actin. These supporting proteins prevent actin from binding with myosin. When a nerve axon sends a signal to a myofilament, the sacroplasmic recticulum releases some of the calcium ions (Ca++) it has been storing. These calcium ions bind to troposin, causing it to pull away from the actin to reveal a site where it can bind to myosin.
Once the binding site on the actin is revealed, the binding sites on the actin are attracted to the "heads" on the myosin. The actin binds to the myosin, creating a "cross-bridge formation" that drags the actin toward the M-band or center of the sacromere. This causes the Z-bands to move, shortening the sacromere, and the process is known as the sliding filament model of muscle contraction (smooth muscle, for instance, contracts in slightly different ways).
A myosin head can only cause actin to slide a very short distance. In order for the muscle to keep contracting, the myosin head must detach and create another cross-bridge formation farther down the actin. Thus, it repositions, forms another cross-bridge, then pulls again, then detaches, repositions, forms another cross-bridge, and pulls again. This is known as the cross-bridge cycle. You can think of it as a row boat moving along a lake; the oarsman must push the water with the oars, lift the oars out of the water, move them forward, put them back into the water to push the water, lift the oars out of the water, move them forward, then put them back into the water to push the water again. Each cycle of this process requires energy, which the muscle receives from ATP.In this activity, the thin filament is shaped like a series of loops that fit over the myosin heads. In reality, the thin filament is looped in a similar fashion, but the myosin does not bind to the actin by fitting inside the actin's loops. In fact, the binding sites on the actin are the parts where the filament is twisted to form the loop. It is less important that visitors understand the structure of the filaments than it is for them to understand that a chemical process causes the filaments to bind together and that this binding forces the thinner filament to slide.
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ATP__________________________
Adenosine triphosphate, or ATP, is the molecule that powers cross-bridge formation and thus filament-sliding and ultimately muscle contraction.
The myosin heads have two binding sites. One is to bind to the actin, and one binds to ATP. When ATP binds to myosin, the reaction is strong enough to pull the myosin head away from the actin. This is how the myosin detaches from the actin for each cycle. The myosin continues to react to the ATP, eventually causing the molecule to lose a phosphate molecule, forming adenosine diphosphate, or ADP. The energy released by breaking this phosphate bond allows the myosin head to move into position to form another cross bridge by binding to actin. At this point, ADP and the extra phosphate molecule are still bound to the myosin. Eventually they are released, which causes myosin to form a strong attachment to the actin, which pulls actin in toward the center of the sacromere.
Then a new ATP molecule binds to the myosin, causing it to release from the actin. The myosin splits the ATP into ADP and a phosphate molecule, and energy released from this causes myosin to move into a new position. Myosin forms a cross-bridge with actin; ADP and phoaphate are released, and the actin slides toward the center of the sacromere. Then more ATP comes up to detach the myosin from the actin.
Muscles contain only a very small amount of ATP, enough for a few seconds of movement. In order for the muscle to continue retracting, ATP must be replenished. Special molecules replenish ADP with phosphate to metabolize more ATP, but these molecules can only store so much. To get more ATP, the muscle breaks down sugar in the blood or stored in the muscle. This process is slower, so ATP replenishment is less rapid.
Muscles will continue to contract as long as there are calcium ions to keep the actin-myosin binding sites clear and as long as there is ATP. The sacroplasmic recticulum will cease releasing calcium ions when there is no longer a signal from the nerve; this is how we purposefully cease muscle contraction. When ATP runs out, that means the muscle is fatigued. That person should rest or eat a red pepper to get more energy. That was a joke. Ha ha.
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Nerves and muscles__________________________
Motor neurons look like the typical neuron, with a large cell body and a tail called an axon. The axon has many terminals, and each terminal connects to a muscle fiber at a place creatively called the neuromuscular junction. This point of connection is where muscle fibers first receive signals from nerves.
When you move your arm, the brain sends a signal through the spine, which connects to nerves, which will connect to the motor neuron required to make the movement you want. At the neuromuscular junction, the neuron releases a neurotransmitter, which binds to the cell membrane (in this case, the sacrolemma). This stimulates the membrane, which creates what is known as an "action potential". Channels in the membrane open up, allowing charged particles (ions) to move through them. This creates an electrical charge (which may still be called an action potential), which can travel through the entire cell as a wave. When someone says that a nerve "fires", they are referring to the neuron creating an action potential that creates an electrical charge that can travel along a cell.
The action potential, or electrical wave, causes the sarcoplasmic recticulum to contract, which in turn causes the sarcoplasmic recticulum to release calcium ions. These are the calcium ions that bind to the supporting proteins connected to actin, resulting in the the liberation of actin's binding sites. This allows myosin to bind to actin, which eventually results in muscle contraction.
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Procedural memory__________________________
The topic of the current Studio exhibit is procedural memory, also known as muscle memory. The name was changed because muscles themselves do not contain memories; the brain has memories that help us signal our muscles. This activity does not deal directly with procedural memory, but rather with how muscles themselves work. The idea behind the activity was to complement the exhibit rather the repeat information from it; once visitors learn how muscles work, they can be encouraged to check out how muscles and the brain communicate.
Procedural memory is the memory of how to perform certain tasks, which allows those tasks to be performed more efficiently. Walking and eating a bike are all examples of procedural memory, but so are less fundamental tasks such as riding a bike or the rituals you perform in the morning before going to work. Scientists still don't understand a lot about the brain and memory, and as for procedural memory, they are unsure about whether it is stored or even how it works.
Scientist do know that forming new procedural memories increases brain activity in the areas responsible for attention and muscle control, and that this activity decreases once the memory is formed. They also know that the frontal, parietal, and temporal lobes play a part in forming procedural memories, and a part of your brain stem probably plays a role in storing them.
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Credits
Activity creation: Joy DeLyria and Lauren Slettedahl
Prop creation: Lauren Slettedahl
Guide creation: Joy DeLyria
Recommended websites:
References:
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