Which section would best display the characteristic striations of skeletal muscle fibers?

Which section would best display the characteristic striations of skeletal muscle fibers?

• A. Longitudinal Section of Cardiac Muscle
• B. Cross Section of Skeletal Muscle
• C. Longitudinal Section of Skeletal Muscle
• D. Cross Section of Cardiac Muscle

Answer: (C)

Striations come from the regular arrangement of contractile units called sarcomeres that run along the length of the skeletal muscle fiber. To see those repeating bands clearly, you want to view the tissue along the fiber’s axis. A longitudinal section cuts through the fibers lengthwise, so the alternating dark (A) and light (I) bands align along the length and appear as stripes. If you look at a cross section, you’re slicing across the fibers, so you’d mainly see circular or polygonal fiber outlines and the distinct banding pattern would be hard to observe. While cardiac muscle is also striated, its fibers branch and have intercalated discs, which can obscure the straightforward striped pattern seen so clearly in a longitudinal view of skeletal muscle.

Striations come from the regular arrangement of contractile units called sarcomeres that run along the length of the skeletal muscle fiber. To see those repeating bands clearly, you want to view the tissue along the fiber’s axis. A longitudinal section cuts through the fibers lengthwise, so the alternating dark (A) and light (I) bands align along the length and appear as stripes. If you look at a cross section, you’re slicing across the fibers, so you’d mainly see circular or polygonal fiber outlines and the distinct banding pattern would be hard to observe. While cardiac muscle is also striated, its fibers branch and have intercalated discs, which can obscure the straightforward striped pattern seen so clearly in a longitudinal view of skeletal muscle.