ArticleProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America2010
Myonuclei acquired by overload exercise precede hypertrophy and are not lost on detraining.
Article in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 2010. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 129 papers, 4 of them syntheses that pooled it.
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Who cites it
129 citing papers in PubMed, 4 syntheses or guidelines pooled it.
- Influence of Resistance Training Variables to Improve Muscle Mass Outcomes in Sarcopenia: A Systematic Review With Meta-Regressions.Journal of cachexia, sarcopenia and muscle · 2025Pooled it
- Myonuclear permanence in skeletal muscle memory: a systematic review and meta-analysis of human and animal studies.Journal of cachexia, sarcopenia and muscle · 2022Pooled it
- Coenzyme QNutrients · 2022Pooled it
- How does hormone transition in transgender women change body composition, muscle strength and haemoglobin? Systematic review with a focus on the implications for sport participation.British journal of sports medicine · 2021Pooled it
- Low-load blood flow-restricted resistance exercise produces fiber type-independent hypertrophy and improves muscle functional capacity in older individuals.Journal of applied physiology (Bethesda, Md. : 1985) · 2023Trial
- Including the Eccentric Phase in Resistance Training to Counteract the Effects of Detraining in Women: A Randomized Controlled Trial.Journal of strength and conditioning research · 2022Trial
- Satellite cell response to erythropoietin treatment and endurance training in healthy young men.The Journal of physiology · 2016Trial
- Basal Tone, Muscle Memory and Denervation: Pathophysiological Foundations of Abdominal Wall Hernia Development and Recovery.Pathophysiology : the official journal of the International Society for Pathophysiology · 2026Review
- Epigenetic Skeletal Muscle Memory: The Impact of Physical Activity on Aging and Post-Injury Regeneration.Genes · 2026Review
- Review
- A transcription-driven model of scaled myonuclear accretion reveals a quantitative role for nuclear reserve capacity.The Journal of physiology · 2026Article
- Review
- Repeated Disuse Atrophy Imprints a Molecular Memory in Skeletal Muscle: Transcriptional Resilience in Young Adults and Susceptibility in Aged Muscle.Advanced science (Weinheim, Baden-Wurttemberg, Germany) · 2026Article
- Botulinum toxin-induced masseter muscle atrophy is associated with impaired autophagic flux without signs of apoptosis in mice.Cell death discovery · 2026Article
- The role of MEGF10 in myoblast fusion and hypertrophic response to overload of skeletal muscle.Journal of muscle research and cell motility · 2025Article
- Differential equation modeling of cell population dynamics in skeletal muscle regeneration from single-cell transcriptomic data.PLoS computational biology · 2025Article
- Muscle memory of exercise optimizes mitochondrial metabolism to support skeletal muscle growth.American journal of physiology. Cell physiology · 2025Article
- Muscle memory theory: A critical evaluation.The Journal of physiology · 2025Article
- Resistance and Aerobic Preconditioning Delays Unloading-Induced Multisystemic Physiological Changes: The NEBULA Project.FASEB journal : official publication of the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology · 2025Article
- Skeletal Muscle Memory: An Update From the Antidoping Perspective.Drug testing and analysis · 2025Review
69 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
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5 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Effects of previous strength training can be long-lived, even after prolonged subsequent inactivity, and retraining is facilitated by a previous training episode. Traditionally, such "muscle memory" has been attributed to neural factors in the absence of any identified local memory mechanism in the muscle tissue. We have used in vivo imaging techniques to study live myonuclei belonging to distinct muscle fibers and observe that new myonuclei are added before any major increase in size during overload. The old and newly acquired nuclei are retained during severe atrophy caused by subsequent denervation lasting for a considerable period of the animal's lifespan. The myonuclei seem to be protected from the high apoptotic activity found in inactive muscle tissue. A hypertrophy episode leading to a lasting elevated number of myonuclei retarded disuse atrophy, and the nuclei could serve as a cell biological substrate for such memory. Because the ability to create myonuclei is impaired in the elderly, individuals may benefit from strength training at an early age, and because anabolic steroids facilitate more myonuclei, nuclear permanency may also have implications for exclusion periods after a doping offense.
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