end plate

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The area of synaptic contact between a motor nerve and a muscle fiber.

The terminal fibers of the motor nerves to the voluntary muscles. The nerve endings lose their myelin sheaths as they enter the sheaths of striated muscle fibers, at which point they ramify across the muscle fiber like the roots of a tree.

A modified muscle fibre membrane occurring at the junction between muscles and nerves. In stimulatory nerve fibres, acetylcholine acts as the neurotransmitter released by the nerve-ending and attaches to receptor sites on the end-plate, depolarizing the muscle membrane. If depolarization exceeds the threshold level, an action potential occurs in the muscle fibre.

A flattened discoid expansion at the neuromuscular junction, where a myelinated motor nerve fiber joins a skeletal muscle fiber.

• e.-p. potential — created by acetylcholine causing depolarization of the muscle cell membrane.