Becker's World of the Cell 9th Edition by Lewis Kleinsmith, Jeff Hardin, Gregory Paul Bertoni

Exercise 7

Nervous Twitching. Recent military conflicts have involved discussions of "weapons of mass destruction," including nerve gas. One such nerve gas contains the chemical sarin. Sarin inhibits reuptake of the neurotransmitter acetylcholine. What effect would you expect sarin to have on muscle function in individuals exposed to the nerve gas, and why In your answer, discuss in detail how sarin would be expected to affect the neuromuscular junction, and how it would affect signaling and cytoskeletal events within affected muscle cells.