Question

1. How many gap junctions are typically found between skeletal muscles as compared to cardiac cells

2. How are muscle contractions of the ventricles represented electrically on an ECG?

Answer 1

There are no gap junctions in the skeletal muscle. The gap junctions help in easy conduction of the depolarization signal. The gap junctions are only found in the cardiac and smooth muscles where skeletal muscles lack these gap junctions.

Muscle contraction of the ventricles leads to the depolarization of the ventricles. This is known as ventricular systole. The ventricular systole is represented in the ECG as QRS complex. QRS complex is the highest peak in the ECG where the peaks top is represented by the R wave.