neuromuscular

1. Of, relating to, or affecting both nerves and muscles.
2. Having the characteristics of both nervous and muscular tissue.

Pertaining or involving both nerves and muscles.

Pertaining to nerve terminations in muscles.

• n. blockade — deliberate paralysis of the motor end-plates; important in veterinary surgery for immobilization. It is effected by the use of competitive (non-depolarizing) agents such as d-tubocurarine, and depolarizing agents such as succinylcholine.
• n. blocking agents — drugs capable of producing neuromuscular blockade (above).
• n. junction — the point of junction of a nerve fiber with the muscle that it innervates. It includes an area of folded sarcolemma of the muscle fiber, and an axon terminal located in the folds and containing vesicles of the neurotransmitter acetylcholine. Called also myoneural junction.
• n. junction disease — examples are tick paralysis, botulism, myasthenia gravis.
• n. paralysis — paralysis caused by malfunction at the neuromuscular junction, e.g. after administration of a neuromuscular blocking agent. The paralysis may be flaccid or spastic.
• phase-II n. block — alteration of the end-plate threshold to depolarization by acetylcholine following prolonged use of a depolarization agent such as succinylcholine.
• n. spindle — consists of muscle fiber, afferent and efferent nerve endings and connective tissue; maintains muscle tone via stretch reflex mediated through two neurons at spinal cord level.
• n. transmission — release of acetylcholine from the nerve ending and activation of the receptors in the muscle end-plate.