When there is no measurable activity in the brain and the brainstem, this is called brain death. In a person who has been declared brain dead, removal of breathing devices will result in cessation of breathing and eventual heart failure. Brain death is considered irreversible.
The functional unit of a skeletal muscle is called a sarcomere. Hole's Anatomy 12th edition, pg 287 states: Muscle fibers, and in a way muscles themselves, are basically collections of sarcomeres, discussed later in this chapter as the functional units of muscle contraction.. sarcomere. Tina Wright.
The short answer is-no pun intended-muscles shorten when they contract. This begs the question of how muscles shorten and, thus, contract. To answer this question, we must first examine the components of the sarcomere, which is the fundamental functional unit of striated muscle-that is, skeletal and cardiac muscle.To say that the sarcomere is the functional unit means that all the components needed for contraction are contained within each sarcomere.hile each sarcomere is small, several sarcomeres added together span the length of the muscle fiber. Each sarcomere consists of thick and thin bundles of proteins referred to as myofilaments. If we magnify a portion of the myofilaments, we can identify the molecules that compose them.