Cardiac pacemaker heart. There are 3 main stages in the generation of an action potential in a pacemaker cell. Since the stages are analogous to contraction of cardiac muscle cells, they have the same naming system. This can lead to some confusion. There is no phase 1 or 2, just phases 0, 3, and 4. The key to the rhythmic firing of pacemaker cells is that, unlike other neurons in the body, these cells will slowly depolarize by themselves and do not need any outside innervation from the autonomic nervous system to fire action potentials. As in all other cells, the resting
Muscle contraction calcium buffers moderate this fall in concentration, permitting a relatively small decrease in free concentration in response to a large change in total calcium. The falling concentration allows the troponin complex to dissociate from the actin filament thereby ending contraction. The heart relaxes, allowing the ventricles to fill with blood and begin the cardiac cycle again. In annelids such as earthworms and leeches, circular and longitudinal muscles cells form the body wall of these animals and are responsible for their movement. In an earthworm that is moving through a soil, for example, contractions of circular and longitudinal muscles occur reciprocally