Visceral Muscles: Involuntary, Internal Organs & Types
Learn about visceral and smooth muscle tissues, their structure, and their relation to internal organs.
Visceral muscle tissue, or smooth muscle, is tissue associated with the internal organs of the body, especially those in the abdominal cavity. There are three types of muscle in the body: skeletal, smooth, and cardiac. As with any muscle, the smooth, involuntary muscles of the visceral muscle tissue (which lines the blood vessels, stomach, digestive tract, and other internal organs) are composed of bundles of specialized cells capable of contraction and relaxation to create movement. If one were to slice through a muscle diagonally, he would find that it resembles a telephone cable. Inside is a bundle of smaller cables, and each bundle surrounds still smaller ones. The first and largest bundle is made up of muscle fibers in which there are nerves, blood vessels, and connective tissue. Each fiber is built up from smaller strands called myofibrils, and each myofibril contains interlaced filaments of muscle proteins.
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