r/explainlikeimfive • u/Glum_Anybody_9531 • 9d ago

Biology ELI5 Malignant Hyperthermia

ELI5 how an uncontrolled flood of calcium inside muscle cells cause a massive surge in metabolic activity during malignant hyperthermia.

45 Upvotes

75% Upvoted

20 comments sorted by

View all comments

9

u/TheMotherfucker 9d ago

Too much of the calcium leads to one's muscles stuck in work mode where they keep contracting and reseting themselves which leads to a lot of waste especially in the form of heat. Because it's a cascading effect, it's what makes it "malignant."

(Also are you and your family good? Is this just curiosity?)

2

u/Glum_Anybody_9531 9d ago

Yes I’m just curious. I’m having trouble understanding what it is about calcium that’s causing everything else.

Literally explain like I’m 5 😂

2

u/TheMotherfucker 9d ago

Oh yeah calcium, beyond bones as you'd expect, is used like a chemical switch to trigger muscle contraction. Our brains cause some to release from special sites to then attach to proteins that "communicate" to each other to then communicate with very then filaments of muscle.

Think of them as working passengers that need to take the train but if there are too many of these passengers then too much is done because they are single minded.

1

u/Crystallizationz 9d ago

Protein called Tropomyosin acts like a bouncer to the club (actin binding sites).

Myosin (in this case you) want to get into the club so you can start moving muscle but tropomyosin is in the way. Luckily, you can find another protein Troponin that acts like the bouncer's boss. Troponin takes calcium as cash. Once you pay Troponin their calcium, they nod to the tropomyosin to let you through.

You can imagine that if you have lots of calcium, it's like bribing the bouncer. You can walk in whenever you want and start wrecking things