Neuromuscular (myoneural) junction

Neuromuscular junction labelled

 Hello, lovely folks!

Lets learn something about the neuromuscular junction!
Refer the diagram as you read.. Otherwise it might not make sense to you..

1 As the nerve suppplying skeletal muscle reaches its termination it divides into a number of terminal buttons or end feet

2 The endfeet contains many small clear vesicles that contain acetyl choline, the transmitter at these junctions!

3 The endings fit into depressions in the motor plate - the thickened portion of the membrane at the junction

4 Underneath the nerve ending, the muscle membrane of the end plate is thrown into a number of folds called the junctional folds

5 The space between the nerves and the thickened membrane is comparable to a synapse! (Remember, this is a chemical synapse and there shall be delay.. In chemical synapses there is no delay)

 6 Ach muscle type nicotinic receptors are concentrated at the tops of the junctional folds of membrane of motor end plate

7 Only one nerve fibre ends on each end plate, with no convergence of multiple units

THIS, my dear friends, is known as the neuromuscular junction or myoneural junction

That's all! ^_^
You can use this as a ready made short note :P

Oh.. One more thing, in one of my first year vivas, I was asked what are the two types of Acetylcholine receptors..
The answer is nicotinic and muscarinic receptors.. There is an interesting story about how they were named!
Muscarinic receptors were named as such because they are more sensitive to muscarine.. isolated from a mushroom! :O
Nicotinic receptors could be opened by nicotine and hence the name!
Imagine someone naming you dust because you are sensitive to it! [That was a lame attempt to crack a joke on hypersensitivity reactions.. I should stop typing now :D ]

-IkaN

PS: I apologize for the awful diagram.. It's from one of my old notes, when I had no intentions of blogging :D
If time permits I'll update the diagram.. Till that you may rely on Google :)