Why are my fingers, when my hand is laying relaxed with its knuckles on a surface, not straight but curled up?

Question

Is this also when you’re asleep or dead? Why is it like this?

In: Biology

Answer 1

Because they have muscle tone, which is “continuous and passive partial contraction of the muscles”. All of your muscles have muscle tone, unless your are suffering from a disease of muscle tone insufficiency. Notice how your arms don’t hang straight down. That is also because of muscle tone.

Fingers are light, compared to arms, so they curl up under the same amount of muscle tone.