About
The research at the muscle lab has three main areas:
- Recovery processes in muscles
- Cellular adaptations to training
- Cellular adaptations to immobilization, aging and disease
Knowledge of the recovery processes in muscles is important to understand how muscles adapt to different loads and to be able to regulate the load so that it produces positive training effects and avoids overload and major muscle damage. The cellular adaptations to training are related to regulation of the muscle mass (the size of the muscle fibers) and the quality of the muscle fibers in terms of their ability to generate force (strength) and to perform long-term work (endurance). Muscles also adapt rapidly to reduced loading, such as in ageing, disease and injury that causes immobilization. In this research area, we mainly study how exercise can be used to counteract some of the negative effects these conditions have on both muscle mass and quality, and a large area is i.a. how exercise during cancer treatment can counteract adverse side effects on muscle mass and muscle quality.
Methods
- Muscle biopsies: Small samples of different muscles that make it possible to study changes at the cellular level and the underlying mechanisms
- Light microscopy: Studies changes in muscle structures, fiber types, size of muscle fibers and capillaries on thin sections of muscle tissue
- Confocal microscopy: Microscopy using lasers that make it possible to study structures in intact muscle fibers and bundles of muscle fibers
- Western blot: Quantification of proteins in the muscle tissue, e.g. changes in mitochondrial proteins during endurance training and during cancer treatment.
Teaching
Muskellab is used in laboratory courses in the bachelor degree in training, performance and health (THP) and by master students for analyzes for their master thesis. The research results from the lab are used in teaching in many courses, but are particularly focused in the course in exercise physiology -THP 202
Research
- PhysCan - Effects of training during breast cancer treatment Exercise induced muscle damage - recovery processes after muscle-damaging exercise Muscle damage and recovery after football matches PrevEx - can occlusion training during treatment for pancreatic and liver cancer reduce the loss of muscle mass Eat4Age - optimizing diet for good muscle health in the elderly Strong MD1 (Myotonic dystrophy type 1)
- How Do patients with muscular dystrophies respond to strength training and how can the load be optimized for this group?
- Prost100 - How do prostate cancer patients on hormone therapy (low testosterone) respond to strength training? Occlusion training vs. heavy strength training - how are fiber types, mitochondria and muscle function affected by these two fundamentally different strength training regimes?
- Strength in handball - the effect of heavy strength training vs. explosive strength training in season on muscular adaptations and performance
Contact: Head of laboratory
- trulsr@nih.no
- Phone
- +47 23 26 23 28