Skeletal muscles as architectured active metamaterials

Lev Truskinovsky | Physics and Mechanics of Heterogeneous Media Laboratory, ESPCI, Paris, France

We review recent attempts to replace chemistry-centered models of force generation in (skeletal) muscles by mechanics-centered models representing muscles as active meta-materials with intricate internal network architecture. Specifically, behind the apparent series connection of structural elements in apparently crystal-like skeletal muscles there is a system of intricate parallel connections accomplished by passive cross-linkers.

Lev Truskinovsky graduated from Moscow University in Applied Mathematics and Mechanics, was a postdoc at Harvard, and then a professor at the Aerospace Engineering and Mechanics Department at the University of Minnesota. More recently he moved to France as a director of research at CNRS first in Ecole Polytechnique and then in ESPCI.