The dynamics of the skeletal muscle: A systems biophysics perspective on muscle modeling with the focus on Hill-type muscle models

Abstract

Skeletal muscle is one of the most fascinating and crucial ingredients of motion generation in nature. Since the beginning of science, people dedicate their life as researchers to enhance knowledge about this biological motor. Thus, the scientific knowledge about the skeletal muscle is overwhelmingly broad and detailed. This contribution collects knowledge about the active and passive dynamics of skeletal muscle. Furthermore, it highlights a special perspective in which not only the muscle itself, but also the role muscles play in the interaction with other structures is studied. The first section introduces this systems biophysics perspective, which clusters the investigation of the relations, interactions and dependencies between muscles and the other structures in the movement apparatus. In the second section, the muscles are considered in more detail by describing three approaches to muscle modeling. The third section deals with recent advances based on Hill-type models, such as, for example, the integration of mass.