Figure - PMC

Skip to main content

An official website of the United States government

Here's how you know

Here's how you know

Official websites use .gov
A .gov website belongs to an official government organization in the United States.

Secure .gov websites use HTTPS
A lock ( ) or https:// means you've safely connected to the .gov website. Share sensitive information only on official, secure websites.

View full-text article in PMC

. 2009 Aug 3;4(8):e6480. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0006480

Search in PMC
Search in PubMed
View in NLM Catalog
Add to search

This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Public Domain declaration which stipulates that, once placed in the public domain, this work may be freely reproduced, distributed, transmitted, modified, built upon, or otherwise used by anyone for any lawful purpose.

This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Public Domain declaration, which stipulates that, once placed in the public domain, this work may be freely reproduced, distributed, transmitted, modified, built upon, or otherwise used by anyone for any lawful purpose.

PMC Copyright notice

A: A sequence of two elongation steps (0.5 mm each), separated in time (ISI) by 45 s, was applied, and the resulting force measured. B: The same two steps shown in A are applied, but now the ISI is only 10 ms. (Blue: Force measured. Red: Force predicted by the superposition principle) C: Same as in B, but with an ISI of 100 ms. D: Same as in C, but with an ISI of 1 s. For clarity, the maximum force recorded is marked by a small horizontal blue bar just to the left of the value. In all cases the prediction is initially considerably higher than the actual force, indicating that the superposition principle does not hold in muscle at long lengths.