Myasthenia Gravis Research Paper

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Myasthenia Gravis

Myasthenia Gravis is a chronic autoimmune disorder affecting one’s muscles. The main characteristic is extreme or fluctuating muscle weakness in muscles you use regularly. An autoimmune disorder is where one’s immune system attacks healthy cells thinking they are harming the body. When one wants to stimulate a movement, our voluntary muscles are controlled by nerve impulses that are stimulated by our brain. The impulses travel down nerves to the muscle fibers. There are spaces between the nerve endings and muscle fibers called neuromuscular junctions. Once an impulse is released by the brain and sends a stimulus through the nerves, it releases a chemical called acetylcholine that travels across the space between the nerve ending and muscle fiber. Once the receptor sites have been activated by enough acetylcholine, the specific muscle that the stimulus was sent to will contract. In myasthenia gravis, there is sometimes almost eighty percent reduction in the number of receptor sites in one’s body.
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This is also an autoimmune disorder. Years after being diagnosed with that syndrome, she developed myasthenia gravis. She tested negative for the antibodies against acetylcholine receptor and muscle-specific receptor tyrosine-kinase which help bind acetylcholine to the muscle fibers but had decreased response to the repetitive nerve stimulation testing. Therefore a generalized myasthenia gravis was diagnosed. There are different types of MG, generalized being specifically characterized by weakness in the trunk, arms or legs. There is also congenital MG which develops shortly after birth and is passed on from the mother with MG and Ocular MG which specifically affects the muscles near the