Morphological changes in neuromuscular junctions during exercise.
Long lasting exercise produces several morphological changes in teleostean neuromuscular junctions (NJs), consisting of progressive synaptic vesicles (SVs) depletion and lamellar branching of the nerve endings. Exercised fishes kept swimming during 1 hr against a 3.5 1/min flow of oxygenated water in spite of the fact that the number of SVs was reduced in about 70% after 10 min of exercise. This observation indicates that the SVs formation fails to restore their original number and consequently, under such circumstances, the transmitter release may occur by a different mechanism.
D000818:Animals; D005293:Ferritins; D005399:Fishes; D009469:Neuromuscular Junction / Q000502:physiology* / Q000648:ultrastructure; D005082:Physical Exertion; D013997:Time Factors
D005293:Ferritins