What is the mechanism behind fresh cuts of meat twitching, more noticeably under salt or an acid? I’m not talking about mechanical retention like a heart beating, but specifically the flesh twitching (which I believe is not simply continued motion). Thanks!
In: Biology
Salts and acids are both kinds of electrolytes, which means that under the right circumstances, introducing them can cause electrical currents to flow. And an electrical current can cause muscle fibers to contract, even if the owner of those muscles is deceased.
Luigi Galvani was the first to demonstrate that this kind of thing could happen with a dead animal’s muscle tissue. In his experiment he made a dead frog’s legs twitch by touching them with different metals, and between him and Volta, they reasoned their way to a theory of “animal electricity”, which is how we began to understand that animals’ bodies (and by extension, ours) use electricity to perform their motor functions.
You can read more about the phenomenon here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galvanism
Latest Answers