Muscles and Their Types MCQ - Practice Questions with Answers

• Muscle is a specialised tissue of mesodermal origin. 
• About 40-50 percent of the bodyweight of a human adult is contributed by muscles.
• They have special properties like excitability, contractility, extensibility and elasticity.
• Muscles have been classified using different criteria, namely location, appearance and nature of regulation of their activities. 
• Based on their location, three types of muscles are identified : 
  • (i) Skeletal 
  • (ii) Visceral and 
  • (iii) Cardiac

Skeletal Muscles:

• These are closely associated with the skeletal components of the body. 
• They have a striped appearance under the microscope and hence are called Striated or Stripped muscles 
• As their activities are under the voluntary control of the nervous system, they are known as Voluntary muscles 
• They are primarily involved in locomotory actions and changes of body postures.

Visceral Muscles:

• Visceral muscles are located in the inner walls of hollow visceral organs of the body like the alimentary canal, reproductive tract, etc. 
• They do not exhibit any striation and are smooth in appearance. 
• Hence, they are called Smooth muscles /Nonstriated muscle/ Unstripped/ Plain muscles 
• Their activities are not under the voluntary control of the nervous system and are therefore known as Involuntary muscles
• They assist, for example, in the transportation of food through the digestive tract and gametes through the genital tract.

Cardiac Muscles:

• Cardiac muscles are the muscles of the heart.
• Many cardiac muscle cells assemble in a branching pattern to form a cardiac muscle. Based on appearance, cardiac muscles are striated. 
• They are involuntary in nature as the nervous system does not control their activities directly.