Smooth & Cardiac Muscles Under The Microscope 🔬 (incl. Artery & Vein).

Following my last post on skeletal muscle under the microscope, today we will look at the remaining two. Both smooth and cardiac muscles are both involuntary muscles. Meaning you cannot control them at your own will like skeletal muscle. Cardiac, as the name suggests, is your heart muscle, in particular the wall of the heart. Smooth muscle makes up your internal body organs, such as blood vessels and other tubular shaped or hollow organs, such as your intestine, stomach and ducts of glands.

Here is my drawing of the cardiac muscle slide I had seen back in school. Not exactly the same as the slide sample I have here (see above image).

Here is my drawing of the smooth muscle slide I had seen back in school. This is probably the only picture that looks the same because it is more simple.

Below is the gif view of both longitudinal and cross sections of the smooth muscle. The cells are very closely packed and you cannot see the individual membrane, hence giving it a smooth look.

Since we expect to see smooth muscle cells for tubular/hollow shaped organs, let us look at a slide of an artery and vein to see if this is the case. Below is a gif of a cross section view. See the difference in shape as the cells are morphed to form the shape/size of the organ? But they are made from smooth muscle cells. We cannot see any striation or cell membrane. Also the artery is wavy like. I would guess this is the case to increase surface area for better absorption and productivity.

I won’t show the cardiac muscle slide because the sample I have is a little boring and doesn’t really show the parts properly. Although speaking of cardiac, I might look at writing a post, sometime in the future, on how our hearts works. It is very interesting. But I will have to go through my notes again and try to sum it up in a more fun and simple way so I don’t scare my readers away.