Striated (striped or voluntary) muscle is one of 3 classifications of muscle in mammals: smooth muscle sometimes called involuntary muscle, cardiac muscle (of the heart), and striated muscle - explored here! In simple terms, striated muscle in humans (and in other animals) is under direct control from the central nervous system: it is 'willingly' controlled! In this low power slide, nuclei can be seen running along the length of invidual nerve fibres - and are visible here as the dark oval patches running up and down the muscles fibres. The actual muscle striations are not yet visible. Scroll down to see the striation effect in a high power magnified image. See the stripes? Well you should be able to! They run horizontally across the 'teased' muscle specimen and are visible as dark lines; lots of them! The stripes are a result of light and dark bands within individual sarcomeres. You will need to consult your text book diagrams for sarcomere structure and explanations. The striated muscle fibres are made up of actin and myosin (contactile proteins) filaments which meet like two sets of combed teeth. A muscle contracts (shortens) when the mysosin and actin elements are pulled together along their length.
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