Dimensões geométricas das fibras do músculo sóleo de ratos exercitados em esteira rolante: A importância da análise por meio de imagens digitalizadas

Abstract

The purpose of this paper was to assess a new methodology to analyze digitalized cross sectional images from the skeletal muscular fibers in rats submitted to physical exercise on treadmill. It was used portions of the soleum muscle of rats attained from histological cuts and tinted with hematoxylin and eosin (HE). 100 muscular fibers were assessed from each animal, and their perimeter, the area, and the maximal, medium and minimal diameters were measured by means of the segmentation process from digitalized images of the fibers' sections using the software Image-Pro Plus. The geometrical dimensions such as the area, the perimeter and the medium and minimal diameters of the cross section of muscular fibers revealed to be adequate to analyze the effect of the training in rats. The analysis revealed the existence of an interaction between the group of rats and the duration of the physical exercise. The Pearson's correlation coefficient was higher between the medium diameter and the area of the fibers (0.97), followed by the correlation between the maximal and medium diameter with the perimeter (0.93). It can be concluded that the measurement of the grade of the hypertrophy of the muscular fibers can be performed by determining the medium diameter or the cross sectional area of the fiber, and thus constituting an adequate and effective methodology especially for muscular fibers with accentuated polymorphism.